Integral sustainability of alkali pozzolan cement: An integral theory application in civil engineering

Abstract

We demonstrate an approach to assess the ‘Integral Sustainability’ of a new cement called ‘Alkali Pozzolan Cement’ (APC), currently under development. In doing so, the pronouns of the AQAL tetra-quadrant frame work were modified so as to differentiate between ‘collections of individuals’ and ‘collectives of individuals’. Subjective information is generated through questionnaires and interviews. Objective information is obtained from experimental and analytical methods. The uncertainty of subjective and objective information is addressed in two ways. One is by incorporating different types of uncertainty related measures (e.g. value ranges and fuzzy measures) into the elements of the two-dimensional tetra-quadrant framework. The other is by introducing a third axis called the ‘certain-uncertain’ axis to the conventional tetra-quadrant framework, thus resulting in a three-dimensional octa-octant framework. This can be used as an Integral Auditing Tool for assessing the cement.