Professor Ravindra K. Dhir OBE, Emeritus Professor of the University of Dundee, UK and recipient of the Order of British Empire for his services to concrete technology, visited Dirk India’s POZZOCRETE Fly Ash processing plant on 22nd October, 2009.
Professor Dhir is one of the renowned scientists in the field of concrete technology worldwide and from time to time visits his ancestral homeland India. Since the inception of the POZZOCRETE plant in Nashik he has taken an interest in this project as the utilization of Fly Ash in concrete is and has been one of his core interests.
Professor Dhir calls a coal fired power station a plant which also makes Fly Ash in addition to producing electricity. He also believes that Fly Ash (treated as a waste by the power generators) needs processing to turn it into a cementitious product for using in concrete. He expressed his admiration to the POZZOCRETE Fly Ash processing plant and the resulting high quality cement replacement products.
On his visit to the POZZOCRETE plant, he passed along a number of Fly Ash trading sites in the fields surrounding the Nashik Thermal Power Station. He said that he is deeply worried to learn that, the so called run of station ash is utilized in making structural concrete. The irresponsible use of such run of station, unprocessed Fly Ash can cause severe damage to concrete structures. This is exactly the reason why all Indian cements have to be quality verified by the Bureau of Indian Standards and have to bear the ISI Standard Mark.
Professor Dhir expressed his hope that the practice to trade uncontrolled run of station Fly Ash for use in structural concrete would be stopped at the earliest and that the good example set by the Nashik POZZOCRETE plant would be copied at other Indian power stations to further increase the beneficial use of this material, which when processed can be used as an excellent concrete constituent.