We were asked by a customer what the difference is between cement and UHPC binder, because in his opinion there is an extreme price difference between these two products. As far as the price difference is concerned, we have to agree with the customer, we are more expensive than a standard cement, but this does not cause us any headaches.
The difference between standard cement and UHPC binder is as follows:
In order to do anything useful with the single norm cement, you have to add gravel, sand and water to the norm cement. If you mix only cement and water, you will get something very brittle. This something is actually useless.
HPC or UHPC is a special mixture of extremely fine and very special products. These special products are sometimes very expensive and because we produce a high quality HPC or UHPC we only use the best raw materials.
Now the important difference to a standard cement. You can mix any HPC and UHPC binder with water and get a high strength product. In addition, this HPC or UHPC water mix is of extreme fineness. You can achieve extremely fine surface structures and a haptic in the nano range.
The attached photos show a copy of a long-playing record copy made with an HPC binder. The plate is playable.
Furthermore, individual elements for a large wall design project and another photo shows clock elements that we have copied with an HPC binder. The individual clock elements are now being processed and used in a clockwork by our customer. It will then be a combination of metallic and HPC elements.
