concretebasics.org: your guide to cement & concrete

Types of Cement

Pyrament Cement

This is a type of geo-polymer cement (Trademark of an American Company) giving very high & very early strength of concrete. This is blended hydraulic cement in which no chlorides are added during manufacturing process. The cement is being used for rapid repair of airfields. US Air Force used this type of cement to build and equip temporary military airports in very short time

The Pyrament® blended-cement is the ideal material for repairing runways made of concrete, industrial pavements, and highway roads. In the case of a runway, 4-6 hours hardening is enough to allow the landing of an Airbus or a Boeing. The geo-polymeric cement reaches a compression strength of 20 Mpa after 4 hours, whereas plain concrete gets to this strength after several days.

If we compare in a microscope the structure of concrete made of regular cement with another sample made of geopolymer cement, we notice that the regular cement is a coarse stacking of grains of matter. This causes cracks and weaknesses. Whereas concrete made of geo-polymer cement (in black) is smooth and homogeneous. This provides, in fact, superior assets.

Plain concrete	Geo-polymer Concrete