1 January 1933
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The Structural Engineer, Volume 10, Issue 1, 1932
Dr Oscar Faber said the paper hardly lent itself to discussion in the ordinary manner, because it was such an excellent description of modern cement manufacture,and nobody could argue with anything that was said in the paper. That made it more difficult to arouse at any rate a very fierce discussion. The first years of his own college course were spent in a cement works, and he had been interested in cement ever since, and for that reason he had appreciated the paper very much. In referring to the universal practice of adding gypsum to make cement slow setting, the author said this is added to the extent of anywhere between 2 per cent, and 3 per cent., but the British Standard specification required that it should not exceed 2.75 per cent. This obviously meant that there was some objection to gypsum if it were introduced in excessive quantities. The objection to gypsum was that an excess of it made a cement what was known as unsound, and it gave the cement certain properties which were deleterious to a permanent concrete.
We very much regret that the following printers' errors occurred in the December issue of The Structural Engineer :- Page 398- "Stewart & Partridges,Limited" should read "Stewart & Partners, Limited" Page 404- The figure "330 O.D." should read "300 O.D." Page 409-"Chief Surveyor" should read "Chief Quantity Surveyor" Page 42-"Breaking of cracks" should read "Breathing of Cracks".
To the Editor of The Structural Engineer. Water-Cement Ratio. Sir,-In reference to Mr. C S Gray’s letter,Professor Duff A Abrams states that "Aggregates of equivalent concrete making qualities may be produced by an indefinite number of different gradings of a given material." "Aggregates of equivalent concrete qualities may be produced from materials of widely different size and grading." "In general, fine and coarse aggregates of widely different size or grading can be combined in such a manner as to produce similar results in concrete." The meaning seems to point clearly to the fact that size or grading may vary widely in each aggregate, but not the different aggregates unless they have equivalent concrete qualities. W D Williams