History and future of the European cement standardisation

Quality control of cement has a long tradition in Europe and worldwide. Already in the 19th century the first standard for cement was published. Since those early days many further developments have taken place. The Construction Products Directive and the Construction Products Regulation set a framework to remove barriers to trade in the European market. National requirements have been consolidated in European standards and testing methods have been harmonised. The number of cement types standardised on the European level has increases continuously since the first version of the “cement standard” EN 197-1 was published in the year 2000. Further cement types, in particular cements produced with lower specific CO2 emissions, will be developed, and presumably further cements will be standardised. The responsible CEN Technical Committee CEN/TC 51 has laid down guidelines to support the procedure of the future European standardisation of new cements.

Author: M. Schneider, S. Baetzne

Section: Standartization and quality

Keywords: cement, cement types, European Construction Product Regulation, standardisation, conformity evaluation, history