Silo logistics for drymix mortars: market, ­applications, technology and regional trends

Summary: With increasing volumes, the evolution of dense urban agglomerations and the resulting traffic and growing environmental awareness, bulk delivery of drymix mortars in movable silos became state of the art in the highly developed markets for building materials in Western Europe. This trend started in the early seventies of the last century. Over the last four decades, the sophistication of the equipment as well as the efficiency of the process has permanently increased. In this article, the author tries to summarize silo development during the last decades, to observe the situation at a global level and to present an outlook of potential markets to come.

1 Building materials in the course of time

Minerally bound mortars have been in use for over 2500 years. A milestone for modern mortars was the availability of dry performance binders since the early 1800s. The discovery of the manufacturing of Portland Cement by Joseph Aspdin and Isaac Johnson, patented in Britain in 1824, as well as similar successes in the field of lime, hydrated lime and gypsum processing mark a decisive stepping point in the evolution of dry mortars. Initially only used for bricklaying, the existence of these dry binders (and here especially the existence of cement) led to...

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