Lafarge South Africa uses its technical strength to provide innovative products and services for customers engaged in bitumen and concrete road construction.

While the realities of budgeting for the lower initial capital outlay of bitumen road paving have to be acknowledged, significant sustainability benefits of concrete pavements are evident when a comprehensive life-cycle and carbon footprint assessment is carried out. A concrete pavement is the most sustainable solution because of its long service life and relatively low maintenance and repair requirement.This results in long-term savings in raw materials, transport and energy. Lafarge products used extensively for soil stabilisation are the specialised cementitious binder, RoadCem, and the general purpose cement, Buildcrete, which are contributing to the stability and longevity of bitumen road surfaces.

The company’s Readymix concrete business can also supply any specification of concrete required for construction of road paving and the associated infrastructure. Two Lafarge products that are commonly used for readymix production are the premium technical cement Powercrete Plus 42.5R and the high early strength cement Rapidcem CEM II 52.5N.

Developed in cooperation with road construction contractors to provide the first product on the local market to be designed specifically to meet their needs, RoadCemhas been extremely successful. One of Lafarge’s lower-carbon footprint cements, RoadCem is a CEM II 32.5N product formulated from Portland cement, siliceous fly ash and blast furnace slag. The product modifies clay minerals and achieves increased soil strength and bearing capacity, as well as better volume stability by controlling the swell and shrinkage characteristics caused by moisture changes. This also enhances resistance to erosion, weathering or traffic loading.