Light-Weight Concrete with Floating Property

Abstract

Lightweight concrete can be defined as a type of concrete which includes an expanding agent in that it increases the volume of the mixture while giving additional qualities such as nailbility and lessened the dead weight. It is lighter than the conventional concrete. The use of lightweight concrete has been widely spread across countries such as USA, United Kingdom and Sweden. The main specialties of lightweight concrete are its low density and thermal conductivity. Its advantages are that there is a reduction of dead load, faster building rates in construction and lower haulage and handling costs. Lightweight concrete maintains its large voids and not forming laitance layers or cement films when placed on the wall. This research was based on the performance of aerated lightweight concrete. However, sufficient water cement ratio is vital to produce adequate cohesion between cement and water. Insufficient water can cause lack of cohesion between particles, thus loss in strength of concrete. Likewise too much water can cause cement to run off aggregate to form laitance layers, subsequently weakens in strength. Therefore, this fundamental research report is prepared to show activities and progress of the lightweight concrete. Focused were on the performance of aerated lightweight concrete such as compressive strength tests, water absorption and density and supplementary tests and comparisons made with other types of lightweight concrete.