CEMENT IN BULK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 113, 14 May 1936, Page 20

CEMENT IN BULK.

GOVERNMENT SAVES £63,000. WEST AUSTRALIAN DAM. The use of cement in bulk instead of in bags in the construction of the Canning Dam has saved the Government £63,000, . according to a paper at the conference of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, in Perth, prepared by Mr. R. J. Dumas (engineer for Metropolitan Water Supply) and Mr. V. C. Munt (resident engineer at the Canning Dam.) The authors of the paper stated that so far as they were /aware, bulk cement was being used on the dam for the first time in Australia. They stirted that the estimated quantity of concrete to be used was 350,000 cubic yards, and the estimated cost £1,050,000. The expenditure to October 12 last was £298,213,- and the concrete plaecd was 9i>,585. Sajid was obtained 11 miles away, and stone at a distance of a quarter of a mile. Tests showed that the average amount of cement left in each jute bag after shaking was 1 Alb, representing 1000 tons for the. whole, job. The weight of the bag was paid for as cement. The cost of the bags, including filling, sewing and tagging, was about 9/ a ton. Many men were employed stacking cement in sheds, wheeling to mixers, opening the bags and dumping into the mixer hopper, and collecting, tying bundles and loading empty bags for return to the cement works. With the bulk cement and automatic batching, th'c contractor conveyed to the dam six tons of cement in bulk and dumped it without any assistance into a 00-ton capacity steel tank. The net saving by the use of bulk cement was 14/5$ per ton, or 3/71 per cubic yard of concrete, making a total of £03,000. j