Types of Portland Cement

Portland cement (or simply call as cement) is the material most commonly used in construction nowadays. There are several types of Portland cement:

Ordinary Portland cement

1. Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)

This is the most widely used and cheaper than others. It is a general purpose Portland cement suitable for all uses. It is used in general construction projects such as buildings, bridges and floors.

2. Moderate Sulfate Resisting Portland Cement

It is designed to be resistant to sulfate attack and generates less heat at a slower rates. This cement is used in general construction projects that are exposed to soil or water containing sulfate ions. 

3. High Early Strength/Rapid-hardening Portland Cement

This cement is similar to Portland cement, but the cement clinkers  are ground to extremely fine particles. It is designed to develop early strength more quickly than ordinary Portland cement. This is used for maintaining a rapid pace of construction because it allows the concrete to bear loads sooner. This cement also suitable used in cold weather, which reduces the rate of hydration of cement. The concrete made with this cement achieves the 3 days strength of rapid hardening cement in 16 hours and 7 days strength in 24 hours.

4. Low Heat Portland Cement

This cment is designed to release heat more slowly than OPC, which means that it gains strength more slower. This cement is usually used for large concrete structures such as dams, which have a low surface to volume ratio.

5. Sulfate Resisting Portland Cement
This type of cement will be used where the concrete structures is exposed to  severe sulfate action, or the concrete is exposed to soil and groundwater with a high content of sulfate.

White Portland cement

6. White Portland Cement

This cement is similar to OPC, it is identical to gray Portland cement except for its high degree of whiteness. White Portland cement is more expensive than OPC due to higher raw materials cost and the greater care during manufacturing.

7. Portland Blast-furnace Cement

This is a special blended cement with low heat of hydration characteristics for mass concreting. The concrete that used this cement have chloride and sulfate resistance properties. This cement is not suitable for use at low curing temperatures but it can be used for construction in sea water.

Left to right: fly ash, metakaolin, silica fume,
 fly ash, slag and calcines shale

8. Pozzolanic Cement

Pozzolanic Cement consists of pozzolanic materials such as fly ash, volcanic ash, pumicites and so on. This cement are cheaper, they have improved plasticity and they have higher resistance to sea water and 
sulfate attack.