A Handbook for Cement Works Chemists by Frank B. Gatehouse is an illustrated laboratory reference published in London by Charles Griffin and Company, Limited, in 1908. It concentrates on the analytical work associated with cement manufacture, from examining raw materials to checking the finished product.
A laboratory handbook for an industrial material
The introduction identifies cement-works chemists as the principal audience, while suggesting that other laboratories may also find the material useful. Gatehouse describes a deliberate effort to keep the book within reasonable limits by including essential working details without unnecessary ambiguity.
Processes are divided into numbered paragraphs, with references between related methods. Brief summaries follow many of the fuller descriptions. This arrangement allows a reader to consult a particular operation while retaining a route back to its explanation.
For a historical self-sufficiency and construction collection, the book adds the manufacturing side of a familiar building material. It helps explain how the condition and composition of cement ingredients were investigated before the material reached a building site. It is a specialist technical work rather than a household recipe book.
Raw materials and their analysis
The second chapter covers the analysis of raw materials. Its contents include sampling, chalk or limestone, loss on ignition, silica and insoluble matter, lime, magnesia, alumina and iron compounds. Clay, shale and other materials receive attention within the same analytical framework.
The discussion also includes slurry and natural cement rock. These subjects show how the chemist’s work was tied to the materials actually entering a cement works, rather than being limited to analysis of a prepared laboratory sample.
Sampling is significant because the result can only describe the material represented by the sample. Readers studying old works records can use the chapter to understand what was being measured and how different constituents were distinguished. The period procedures and terminology should remain part of that interpretation.
Calculating a raw mixture
The third chapter addresses calculation of the proportions of raw materials. Limestone, clay, shale and marl appear in the contents, together with the composition of a standard dry slurry or raw meal. Calculations connect the analytical figures to the mixture intended for production.
This is a useful change of scale within the book. The earlier chapter asks what is present in an ingredient; the calculation chapter asks how ingredients can be combined in specified proportions. The relationship between measurement and process control is one of the volume’s most informative themes.
The numerical examples belong to the author’s materials and assumptions. They provide evidence of historical manufacturing practice, not a current formula for producing structural cement. Modern production control requires contemporary testing methods, equipment and quality requirements.
Fuel, water, lubricants and kiln gases
The fourth chapter broadens the scope beyond the cement ingredients themselves. Fuel analysis includes coal-related measurements, while the contents also list lubricants, water and kiln gases. The operating conditions of the works are therefore considered alongside the composition of its product.
Water analysis covers several constituents and properties. The lubricants material includes physical and chemical characteristics. These sections make the handbook useful to readers investigating the wider laboratory responsibilities of an industrial chemist in the period.
They also explain why a cement-works laboratory might need a varied collection of apparatus and reagents. The introduction lists the equipment required for the processes described. Historical chemical procedures should be studied with their date and laboratory context in mind, rather than reproduced as casual home experiments.
Finished cement and reference material
The fifth chapter deals with cement analysis, including technical-purpose analysis and related materials such as gypsum, plaster and Keene’s cement. An appendix supplies calculation examples, directions for making solutions and tables. An index helps readers find particular subjects.
This free ebook suits materials historians, industrial-heritage researchers and technically prepared readers interested in cement manufacture. The PDF contains 215 digital pages, including a substantial publisher’s catalogue after the main work. It is an image-based scan with the original illustrations and typography; small numerical entries and chemical notation are best checked at high magnification.
Book details
- Author: Frank B. Gatehouse
- Publisher: Charles Griffin and Company, Limited, London
- Year: 1908
- Edition: No numbered edition stated
- Digital length: 215 PDF pages
- Language: English
- File size: 8.36 MB
