About vocational guidance

Ten years ago, I was a young boy graduating from high school. Dream of becoming a tour guide attracted me a lot though I was quite an introvert. At least I somehow saw what a tour guide was and what kind of job it was. But my mom wanted me to become a mining engineer since my hometown is rich in coal and some of our relatives work in this field. Little did I know about this career but I finally obeyed my mom. Now, after ten years, I cannot say if I had made a right decision. I think more about vocational guidance.

Mysterious adhesive material at Cham Pa towers

 Cham Pa is an ancient kingdom existed in Central Vietnam until being completely wiped out by Nguyen Dynasty in 19th century. 

"Banh it" towers 2021

Their relics now can still be seen in many provinces in the nation like Hue, Binh Thuan, Binh Dinh, Quang Nam. They are water well, statues and the most valuable architectures are religious towers for their rituals. 

What makes Cham Pa towers so special is the mysterious adhesive material using to connects bricks to build up the towers firmly standing for thousand of years. The gaps between bricks are so thin as if there is nothing and the whole wall is only one block.

Ground granulated blast furnace slag GGBS and my experiments

In one of my previous article, I mentioned GGBS:

Now with the development of steel-making, a great quantity of slag is discharged. Because the most common technology of iron-making is blast furnace. Let's talk about blast furnace slag, especially granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS).

In the furnace, the molten iron is heavier than the slag so the slag floats above and flow in a different way. Cold water is sprayed to molten slag (prox. 1400 degree) and it is immediately cool down and broken into small particles (less than 5mm in size) with hardly any crystallization. GBFS mainly consists of Ca, Si, Al, Mg. Clinker can be added with iron slag when being ground to produce cement or GBFS itself can be ground (GGBS) and then added to concrete, mortar and grout. 

Concrete, mortar and grout as far as I know in Vietnam

 In the past, it was common to see houses with walls built up with mud and chopped straw - a simple primitive mortar. When this material dry, it can stand medium rains but I don't think it's possible in heavy rains and storms. It's just a physical mixture.

Then people used to use ashes from wood, coal, or even mud, sometimes added with clay and sand but the most important material is lime. The alkaline environment created by lime allows hydration reactions to happen. As as result, the mixture become hard and has better strength though the setting times is quite slow - up to several days.

Fossil dinosaur samples haven't been found in Vietnam yet

 The university that I used to learnt at - Hanoi university of mining and geology is one of few places retaining fossil dinosaur samples in Vietnam. 

The samples, however, were discovered in Savannakhet, Laos by Prof. Josué Heilman Hoffet in 1936 and when he came to Vietnam to work as a teacher of geology at Indochina University established by the French in 1941, he brought some samples with him. 

The fossil samples belongs to the species named Tangvayosaurus, which is named after the site where they found the fossils.

Steel for the development

 No doubt that steel is one of the most important materials for the national development. Global steel consumption in 2021 is 1.87 billion metric tons. But for every nation in different period, demand for certain steel products is different.

In the very first phase, the main demand is steel for basic construction like bar, rebar, wire rod, pipe steel. In this period, the appearance of a countries is dramatically change. Roads, bridge, ports, etc. are built. Tall buildings or at least house built with concrete replaces cottage and low-storied structures.

Translation of scientific, technical and technological in Vietnamese

 Most of specialized terms in Vietnam come from French, Chinese and English.

Because of the geological proximity, Vietnamese itself contain a lot of words originating from ancient Chinese. They are called Sino-Vietnamese.

In the early period of absorbing science and technology in Vietnam, when Vietnam was still a French colony in late 19th and early 20th century, the very first terms were introduced into Vietnamese from French.

Steel industry is facing a dark time

 As an engineer working in steel industry for almost of my career until now, I think every sectors of the economy has its periods of prosperity and recession and steel industry is no exception.

The most recent crisis in this industry is the end of 2018 which is caused by the trade war between China and USA. During the pandemic, everything is blocked down but surprisingly, the industry show its impressive growth. Early this year, people said the recession in late 2022 was foreseen due to the Ukraine-Russia war causing the increase of coal price, monetary policies of governments, the decrease of real estate.

Iron and steel complexes in central and southern of Vietnam have to import limestone and dolomite from the north

 Limestone and dolomite are raw material for steel-making with an estimated quantity of 200kgs limestone and 100kg dolomite for one tone of steel.

Limestone can be burnt to become lime, dolomite can be burnt to become burnt dolomite or light-burnt dolomite. Limestone and dolomite.

Typical kilns include shaft kilns and rotary kilns. Limestone and dolomite fed into shaft kilns are of the size 40-80mm, while the one for rotary kilns can be smaller - 20-40mm.

Limestone and dolomite, lime and burn dolomite are also ground to produce powder with top size of 3mm.

A trip to Tam Hai, Quang Nam - typical volcanic terrain

 In August and September 2022, I have been Tam Hai for a couple of short trips.

Tam Hai is a small island off the coastal line in the central Vietnam with an area of approx. 15 square kilometers, surrounded by the blue sea. There is a small coral reef in the southeastern edge. To be honest, the scenery is not really impressive to me, however, the volcanic terrain in the sea cliff of Ban Than caught my attention.

People seem to be to obsessed and deluded about rare earth

 Have you ever heard about stone age, bronze age, iron age? Yes, that what we name periods of human civilization. So what do we name our time? I suggest "rare earth age". Rare earth is now, no doubt, an important parts of our development. It appears in all electronic devices. Some people even emphasize that any nation that possess large reserves of rare earth, they hold the world future.

A type of primitive composite material in Vietnam

We can name an area of human civilization by the accommodation. 

In the pre-history, cavemen built nothing but made use of cave, sometimes adapted a little bit to stay in, that's why they got the name "cavemen".

Then human beings built their very first buildings like tents or cottages with materials available in the nature like wood, grass, leave, stone.

Iron ore: Sintering and pellet

 We basically know that steel products are made from iron ore. However, iron ore dug from the ground undergo a long and complicated to became useful steel product. We will have a short look on one of the most applied technologies - Blast furnace (BF)

I divide the whole process into 4 phases like below:

A short introduction of myself

 Hello everyone,

My name is Chuc, now I'm in my early thirties. I have a degree of engineer on mining engineering. In my career, I have been working at several companies in mining and steel industry.

I speak Vietnamese as my mother tongue, English and Chinese (Mandarin) at intermediate level and manage with Korean now. I hope than in the future, I can continue with more languages like Japanese, French, Spanish, Cantonese, Russian.