Aerated concrete is made by introducing air or gas into a slurry composed of Portland cement or lime and finely crushed siliceous filler so that when the mix sets and hardens, a uniformly cellular structure is formed. Though it is called aerated concrete it is really not a concrete in the correct sense of the word. As described above, it is a mixture of water, cement and finely crushed sand. Aerated concrete is also referred to as gas concrete, foam concrete, cellular concrete. In India we have at present a few factories manufacturing aerated concrete.
A common product of aerated concrete in India is Siporex.
Manufacturing of Aerated Concrete
There are several ways in which aerated concrete can be manufactured.
(a) By the formation of gas by chemical reaction within the mass during liquid or plastic state.
(b) By mixing preformed stable foam with the slurry.
(c) By using finely powdered metal (usually aluminium powder) with the slurry and made to react with the calcium hydroxide liberated during the hydration process, to give out large quantity of hydrogen gas. This hydrogen gas when contained in the slurry mix, gives the cellular structure.
Powdered zinc may also be added in place of aluminum powder. Hydrogen peroxide and bleaching powder have also been used instead of metal powder. But this practice is not widely followed at present.
In the second method preformed, stable foam is mixed with cement and crushed sand slurry thus causing the cellular structure when this gets set and hardened. As a minor modification some foam-giving agents are also mixed and thoroughly churned or beaten (in the same manner as that of preparing foam with the white of egg) to obtain foam effect in the concrete. In a similar way, air entrained agent in large quantity can also be used and mixed thoroughly to introduce cellular aerated structure in the concrete. However, this method cannot be employed for decreasing the density of the concrete beyond a certain point and as such, the use of air entrainment is not often practised for making aerated concrete.
Gasification method is of the most widely adopted methods using aluminium powder or such other similar material. This method is adopted in the large scale manufacture of aerated concrete in the factory wherein the whole process is mechanised and the product is subjected to high pressure steam curing i.e., in other words, the products are autoclaved. Such products will suffer neither retrogression of strength nor dimensional instability.
The practice of using preformed foam with slurry is limited to small scale production and in situ work where small change in the dimensional stability can be tolerated. But the advantage is that any density desired at site can be made in this method.
Properties of Aerated Concrete
Use of foam concrete has gained popularity not only because of the low density but also because of other properties mainly the thermal insulation property. Aerated concrete is made in the density range from 300 kg/m3 to about 800 kg/m3. Lower density grades are used for insulation purposes, while medium density grades are used for the manufacture of building blocks or load bearing walls and comparatively higher density grades are used in the manufacture of prefabricated structural members in conjunction with steel reinforcement.