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Civil Engineering & Construction vocabulary · Concrete and Steel

Cement

Meaning in civil engineering & construction, with examples

/sɪˈment/nounCore term

In civil engineering & construction, cement means: A fine grey powder that reacts with water and hardens. It is the binder that glues sand and gravel together in concrete and mortar.

In Turkish: çimento

How it is used

Cement is delivered in bags or in bulk to a silo. Engineers talk about the cement type (such as CEM I or CEM II Portland cements), the cement content and the water-cement ratio, which strongly affects strength.

Example sentences

  1. The mix uses 350 kilograms of cement per cubic metre.

  2. Store the cement bags off the ground and keep them dry.

Common collocations

  • Portland cement
  • cement content
  • water-cement ratio
  • bag of cement
  • cement silo
  • concreteA building material made by mixing cement, water, sand and gravel. It is placed while wet and hardens into a strong, stone-like mass.
  • aggregateSand, gravel or crushed stone that is mixed with cement and water to make concrete. It makes up most of the volume of concrete and of road layers.
  • ready-mix concreteConcrete that is batched at a plant to a set recipe and delivered to site in truck mixers, ready to pour.
  • compressive strengthHow much crushing pressure a material, especially concrete, can take before it fails. For concrete it is measured in megapascals (MPa) on cubes or cylinders, usually at 28 days.

More terms: Concrete and Steel

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