Masonry Magazine November 2012 Page. 28
CASE STUDY
GREEN BUILDING
Blended Cements Aid in Sustainable Design, Construction
In pursuit of LEED ratings and other green building goals, healthcare organizations are increasingly relying on innovative cement blends in the construction of new high-performance facilities.
As the demand for environmentally friendly design and building practices continues to grow, innovative cement blends from Lafarge North America are making a strong contribution to the construction of high-performance healthcare facilities around the country. Gundersen Lutheran Health System in Wisconsin, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and The Moses H. Memorial Hospital in North Carolina are just three examples of healthcare construction projects using blended cements to achieve high-strength, long-term durability and resource conservation.
Cementitious blends, which are a combination of Portland cement and one or more supplementary cementing materials (SCMs), have many properties that contribute to sustainable building goals, such as those prescribed in the LEED green building rating system. Their use not only results in durable, high-performance concrete, but also it saves virgin raw materials, lowers energy consumption, and turns by-products from other industries into resources that would, otherwise, be disposed of in landfills. The most common SCMs are slag cement (a by-product of the iron-manufacturing process), fly ash (a coal combustion by-product from power plants), and silica fume (a by-product of manufacturing silicon metals and ferro-silicon alloys).
When Gundersen Lutheran Health System's multi-year campus renewal project is complete, the new facility in La Crosse, Wis., will achieve high marks in sustainability. Designed following LEED principles, the center's new hospital will feature numerous environmentally friendly elements in areas such as energy efficiency, recycled construction materials and building design.
In addition, many of the project's construction materials are being produced locally, including the concrete containing Lafarge's Type I/II Portland cement and Columbia Class C fly
Shown is the Gundersen Lutheran Health System campus.