science

Portland Cement Works Precinct

Portland Cement Works Precinct is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Portland Cement Works Precinct rather than just read about it. In short: Portland Cement Works Precinct is a heritage-listed former cement works and limestone quarries and now disused industrial site at Williwa Street, Portland, City of Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built in various stages from 1890 to 2003.

Key takeaways

Portland Cement Works Precinct belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Portland Cement Works Precinct to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Portland Cement Works Precinct from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Portland Cement Works Precinct is a heritage-listed former cement works and limestone quarries and now disused industrial site at Williwa Street, Portland, City of Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built in various stages from 1890 to 2003. It is also known as Portland Cement Group and Commonwealth Portland Cement Company Ltd. The property is owned by Boral Limited. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 3 August 2012.

History

Portland Cement Works Site - first phase (George Raffan) timeline 10,000 BC onwards – Known Aboriginal occupation of this region. 1820 – British explorer James Blackman was the first recorded white visitor to the region. 1824 – First land grants made. 1828 – MacPherson family took up a grant of 259 hectares (640 acres) and then another 259 hectares (640 acres) in 1832. The name Limestone Flat was associated with their property and they apparently used limestone found on their property in the building of their home (since demolished?). 1836/7 – William Lawson acquired the MacPherson family lands. 1863 – Thomas Murray was granted 24 hectares (60 acres) (bought from Lawson?), Portion 52 in the parish of Cullen Bullen, County of Roxburgh. He built two lime kilns on the property sometime after 1869. 1863 – Thomas Murray used site for lime production (and presumably extraction). 1882 – Thomas Murray sold Portion 52 to Charles Bate. 1882 – Alexander Currie and George Raffan became the owners of Portion 52 in August. 1883 – Railway line extended to nearby Capertee. 1884 – A one-roomed school was constructed at some distance from the site, known as the Cullen School. 1887 – Currie and Raffan with others formed the Cullen Bullen Lime & Marble Works, which bought Portion 52 in this year. 1889-1895 – The Cullen Bullen Lime & Marble Works had become the Cullen Bullen Lime & Cement Company by this date. The company produced cement under the brand name of "Kangaroo". The cement was of variable quality and only produced intermittently on site until production ceased in 1895. The only remnants of cement production from this era are the two bottle kilns in the north-west corner of Portion 52 and the old brick building known as "Raffan's Mill". 1894 – Village of Portland gazetted, to the south of the cement company's lease, with 200 people recorded as living in the area. 1895 – Cullen School was moved into the new village of Portland and expanded. 1895 – The Cullen Bullen Lime & Cement Company failed and was taken over by one of the original partners, George Raffan and his brother John, who opened the Ivanhoe Lime and Cement Works & Colliery. 1898 – The Ivanhoe Lime and Cement Works & Colliery also failed. 1899 – The name of the school was changed to Portland School. 1899 – The (British-owned) New Zealand Mines Trust through their agent Dr August Scheidel bought the land, plant and leases from the Raffan brothers. Scheidel, a metallurgist PhD with gold mining experience, obtained backing for an investment of A£100,000 to build a cement production plant, of which he remained Managing Director until 1918.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Portland Cement Works Precinct

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Portland Cement Works Precinct claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Portland Cement Works Precinct before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Portland Cement Works Precinct ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Portland Cement Works Precinct

In research: Portland Cement Works Precinct appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Portland Cement Works Precinct in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Portland Cement Works Precinct is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Industrial buildings in New South Wales, Lime kilns in Australia, Limestone industry, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Portland Cement Works Precinct outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Portland Cement Works Precinct in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Portland Cement Works Precinct means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Portland Cement Works Precinct out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Portland Cement Works Precinct in simple terms?

Why does Portland Cement Works Precinct matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Portland Cement Works Precinct?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Portland Cement Works Precinct.