Construction World October 2015

READYMIX

COMPLETE OFFERING Lafarge South Africa is in a unique position to provide the construction industry with building materials and solutions through having a strong presence in all of its construction related business lines of cement, aggregates, ready-mixed concrete, fly ash and gypsum plasterboard. The company focuses strongly on the needs of its customers and their projects to develop innovative holistic product supply solutions. The approach is proving to be highly effective, offering customers peace of mind and better value in a competitive marketplace.

ready-mixed concrete plant was 45 km from the project site. The second concern was ameliorating the Heat of Hydration (HOH) in the extremely hot, humid conditions. Lafarge’s successful offer to supply all main building materials, concrete, cement, fly ash, and 165 000 t of road aggregates, as well as 4 500 t of the company’s specialised cementitious roadbinder, RoadCem 32,5N, made it viable to provide a Lafarge mobile concrete batching plant on site. This enabled the required combined total of 13 000 m³ of CRCP mix and other Conventionally Vibrated Concrete (CVC) to be supplied without compromising the quality or integrity of the concrete. The solution to assisting the contractor to control heat of hydration was the supply of 6 500 t of Lafarge’s Powercrete Plus CEM II 42,5R premium technical cement. This unique product is not only a Low Heat Cement with a typical Heat of Hydration value of 227 J/g (compared with the EN 197-1 criterion of < 270 J/g at 41h), but it can also be extended further on site with fly ash to meet the various mix requirements. Meeting a tight durability specification Similar support was provided to the main contractor on the SANRAL contract to upgrade Section 14 of the N1 freeway between Trompsburg Interchange and Fonteintjie, a distance of 20,8 km. The site is some 120 km from the nearest fixed commercial ready-mixed concrete plant and this represented a potentially significant risk in terms of compliance with the tight dura- bility specification. The solution from Lafarge South Africa was to position a mobile concrete batching plant optimally on site to service the major concrete pours and take on the durability risk. This was conditional on being awarded the full supply package of building materials. The successful outcome was the supply of 10 000 m³ CVC concrete, on-specification and on-time. This involved the supply 3 500 t of Lafarge Powercrete Plus 42,5R cement, 7 000 t of aggregates, 1 000 t of fly ash, as well as 8 000 t of cementitious roadbinder, RoadCem. “Our construction contractor customers are appreciating the benefits of having their building materials supplied and managed from a single reliable source,” comments Lafarge South Africa’s, Mike Fisher, infrastruc- ture road & rail development manager. “By matching the extensive capabilities of Lafarge South Africa with the needs of the specific construction project and the individual construction company, we achieve consistent quality and better value all round for the stakeholders.”

Lafarge South Africa is the local presence of the international Lafarge Group, a world leader in building materials. The Group’s brand baseline ‘Building better cities’ is founded on the huge global trend to urbani- sation and reflects Lafarge’s commitment to help create cities that are desirable, sustain- able environments for all people. This means contributing to better solu- tions that meet the needs of communities for decent housing, hospitals, schools and offices, together with the associated infra- structure to connect and service cities, such >

as roads, airports, water and power utilities. All round support at Eteza A recent example of Lafarge South Africa’s efficient integrated service was on the SANRAL contract to construct an overload control facility and full diamond interchange at Eteza on the N2 in KwaZulu-Natal. The main contractor was concerned about two main concrete issues. The driver of the project was their ability to place the Continuous Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP) on time and within specification, when the closest commercial

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD OCTOBER 2015