Mortars from Roman cement and their properties

Abstract eng:
A new fast-setting cement, called Roman cement, appeared recently in the market. To identify the possibilities of using it in the field of cultural heritage, it is important to know as much as possible about its properties. In the Czech Republic, one of the possible uses is as jointing and plastering materials for spongilite walls (spongilite is a highly heterogeneous material with an anisotropic character, this sedimentary rock consists of calcite and different forms of SiO2), as well as a repair material for spongilite architectural details. The first part of our research, presented in this work, studies effects of the addition of various proportions of lime hydrate on the properties of fresh and hardened mortar from Roman cement. First of all, properties of fresh mortar such as water/binder ratio, speed of setting, volume stability and volume density were measured on the different mixes prepared. After 28 days of setting, the hardened mortars were characterized. Volume density, open porosity and pore size distribution were all determined. Then, the samples were subjected to testing: compressive and bending strength and resistance to salt crystallization. In order to characterize the components in the Roman cement, XRD, XRF, infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectrometry were used. The future work will focus on comparing the properties of Roman cement mortars to those of spongilite, in order to determine a mortar based on Roman cement suitable for the use in spongilite restoration work.

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