Blast-furnace slag
as a mineral
admixture
for concrete
Finely ground slag may be blended
with portland cement or added to
other ingredients at the mixer
BY DONALD W. LEWIS
CHIEF ENGINEER
NATIONAL SLAG ASSOCIATION
W hen slag, a by-product of the iron-making process,
is quenched with water and rapidly chilled, it
forms a glassy granulated material of sand-like consis-
tency. Because of its high calcium silicate content, it has
excellent cementitious properties. When finely ground
and combined with a suitable activator, slag sets in a
manner similar to portland cement. The hyd ra u l i c
properties of granulated blast-furnace slags have been
studied for nearly 200 years, and use of slag in mortars
and concretes dates back more than a hundred years.
Four ways to use ground slag
Four important methods for use of granulated slag,
where it maintains its separate identity, and is a cemen-
titious component, are:
• Ground glassy slag is mixed with hydrated lime as the
activator. The slag cement covered by ASTM Specifica-
tion C 595 is an example of this type of use. Use of this
type of cement began about the same time that port-
land cement was developed. Its relatively low rate of
strength gain has resulted in little present-day pro-
duction.
• The glassy slag is ground with burned gypsum or anhy -
drite and small amount of portland cement or lime.
These “supersulfated cements” are covered by stan-
dard specifications in many countries where they are
used for specialized applications requiring high resis-
tance to aggressive agents such as seawater, sulfates
and acids.
• Ground glassy slag and portland cement are combined
in various proportions to form portland blast-furnace
Water-granulated blast-furnace slag has the consistency of
sand, and must be finely ground for use as a cementing
material in concrete. Actual dimension of sample shown
above is about 6 inches across.
slag cements. Such blended cements are covered by
ASTM Specification C 595, the German eisenportland
and hochofen cement specifications, the French ci -
ments Portland de Fer, de haut forneau and many oth-
ers. These blended cements have been in use for
about 90 years with excellent performance worldwide.
The majority are produced by intergrinding the slag
and clinker, although separate grinding and blending
of these components is permitted in some countries,
and used to a minor extent. The slag may be as much
as 80 to 90 percent of the cement for some applica-
tions.
• Separately ground slag may be combined with the port -
land cement and other ingredients of the mortar or
concrete at the mixer. In this method of use, the slag is
a mineral admixture by ASTM and ACI definitions,
since it is “a material other than water, aggregates, and
h yd raulic cement that is used as an ingredient of con-
crete or mortar and is added to the batch immediate-
ly before or during mixing.” It is a cementitious ad-
mixture that is frequently used as half or more of the
total cementitious material in the mortar or concrete.
Use as admixture or cement replacement
The use of separately ground blast-furnace slag,
added at the mixer as a replacement for a portion of the
portland cement, has gained increasing acceptance in
recent years. This practice was started in South Africa in
1958, where replacement of 50 percent of the portland
cement is common for ordinary concrete applications
with 70 percent slag used in concrete for marine struc-

Air-granulated blast-furnace slag shown here on shovel is
substantially coarser than the water-quenched material
described in the test. Air-granulated slag also is a
cementitious material.
tures. Similar applications began in the United Kingdom
in 1970, in Canada about 6 years ago, and separately
ground slag has been available on a limited basis in the
United States for nearly four years. Annual production in
the United States is expected to reach about 1,000,000
tons in the next year, and to increase rapidly during the
next decade. In some countries use of ground granulat-
ed slags is far greater than the use of fly ash and other
pozzolans.
In addition to the economy gained from use of slag as
a partial replacement for the cement, there are large sav-
ings in energy requirements for the final product. Total
energy consumption in processing and grinding the slag
is far less than that necessary for the production of port-
land cement.
A number of advantages are gained from separate
grinding of slag and adding it at the mixer, as contrasted
with the common practice of intergrinding the slag and
clinker in the production of blended cements:
Ability to proportion slag and cement to suit project
requirements
Grinding of both slag and cement to optimum
finenesses
Better control of product quality (by eliminating
variations in fineness from intergrinding materials
of differing hardness)
Improvement of concrete workability
Improvement of storage properties
The performance of a slag used as a mineral admix-
ture in mortar or concrete depends on several factors.
The following are the more important:
• Chemical composition of the slag. The more basic
(non-acidic) materials may be expected to be more
cementitious, assuming other factors to remain the
same. Howe ve r, the amounts of minor components
often have a significant effect.
• Glass content is important, with high glass content de-
sirable, but large variations in results can be produced
by different glass structures, determined to some ex-
tent by thermal history of the slag.
• Fineness of grind determines the rate of reaction. A
single factor such as surface area may be misleading,
howe ve r, because of differences in the grain size dis-
tribution.
• The amount of slag used in the blend will, of course,
determine the magnitude of modification of the ce-
ment characteristics.
Finally, the performance of the slag will be partially de-
pendent upon the chemical composition and fineness of
the cement with which it is combined.
Quality of slag
Many moduli and indices have been developed to de-
termine the slag activity and properties. Many of these
are useful for quality control of a slag, but no simple
method has been devised to take into account all fac-
tors including the influence of the cement itself. ASTM
specifications, now being considered for adoption, rely
upon mortar cube tests to compare strengths of 50:50
slag and cement combinations with the straight cement
mortars. Results in concrete may differ from those of the
mortars because of differences in curing.
Effect on concrete properties
The primary effect of ground slag admixtures on the
p ro p e rties of the freshly mixed concrete are to provide
better workability and finishability. As a result, lower wa-
ter-cement ratios may be used in many cases. Concrete
mix proportioning for optimum performance with the
slag can be accomplished in accordance with ACI Com-
mittee 211 recommendations. The designs will usually
indicate decreased amounts of water, fine aggregate, to-
tal cementitious material, or a combination thereof, per
unit volume of concrete compared to a mixture with
portland cement as the entire cementitious material.
The effects of partial replacement of portland cement
with ground slag on the properties of hardened concrete
have been extensively investigated and reported in re-
cent years. Both laboratory testing and field experience
have shown that properly proportioned slag-portland
cement concretes have the following properties com-
pared to regular portland mixes:
• Higher ultimate strengths with a tendency toward
lower early strengths
• Higher ratio of flexural to compressive strengths
• Improved refractory properties
• Lower coefficients of variation in strengths
• Improved resistance to sulfates and seawater
• Lowered expansions from alkali-silica reactions
• Lower temperature rise due to loser heat of hydration
 • Better finish and lighter color
• Equivalent durability in freezing and thawing, and
• Decreased porosity and chloride penetration.

References
1. Lea, F. M., “Cements Made From Blastfurnace Slag,” The
Chemistry of Cement and Concrete, Chapter 15 (Chemical
Publishing Co., Inc., 1971).
2. Hogan, F. J. and Meusel, J. W., “Evaluation for Durability
and Strength Development of a Ground Granulated Blast-
Furnace Slag,” Cement, Concrete and Aggregates, Volume
3, Number 1, Summer 1981, pages 40-52.
3. Spellman, L. U., “The Transition of Blast Furnace Slag as
a Cementitious Material,” Proceedings, 15th International
Cement Seminar, Chicago, 1979.
4. Lewis, D. W., discussion of ACI Committee 212 reports
“Admixture for Concrete, ACI 212.1R-81” and “Guide for
Use of Admixtures in Concrete, ACI 212.2R-81,” Concrete
International, November 1981, Volume 3, Number 11, pages
64-65.

PUBLICATION #C820448
Copyright © 1982, The Aberdeen Group
All rights reserved