Proportioning Concrete Mixtures with PLC
The durable, resilient concrete you depend on just got greener.
A switch to PLC (Type IL) is handled the same way as a switch to any other new material, with an investigation of fresh mixture behavior and hardened properties. Once a ready-mix producer establishes baseline performance, they can make adjustments as needed to accommodate any material combination. Typically, PLC mixtures require little or no adjustment to concrete mixture designs to achieve similar strength, durability and resilience as mixtures with the same amounts of traditional portland cement.
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That easy change will have a big, sustainable impact. Swapping out traditional portland cement for portland-limestone cement (PLC) reduces CO2 by roughly 10%. And because PLC works with other supplementary cementing materials, you can still use fly ash or slag to reduce the carbon footprint of your concrete even further.
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Ready mix producers know materials in their market and work with many of them. If a material changes, some testing is warranted until they understand how it works with other ingredients in the mix.
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