Abstract
The effects of different lightweight functional fillers on the properties of cement-based composites are investigated in this study. The fillers include fly ash cenospheres (FACs) and glass micro-spheres (GMS15 and GMS38) in various proportions. The developed composites were tested for compressive, flexural and tensile strengths at 10 and 28-day ages. The results indicated that both FACs and GMS38 are excellent candidates for producing strong lightweight composites. However, incorporation of GMS15 resulted in much lower specific strength values (only up to 13.64 kPa/kg m3) due to its thinner shell thickness and lower isostatic crushing strength value (2.07 MPa). Microstructural analyses further revealed that GMS38 and GMS15 were better suited for thermal insulating applications. However, higher weight fraction of the fillers in composites leads to increased porosity which might be detrimental to their strength development.
Highlights
Lightweight concrete (LWC) has gained much more interest from the researchers in the last few decades its use could trace back to 3000 BC (Chandra and Berntsson 2002)
The unit weight of LWC lies in the range of 1200–1800 kg/m3 (Li 2011) while for structural LWC in general ACI Committee 213 defines the range as 1120–1920 kg/m3 (ACI 213 2003)
Different types of lightweight filler (LWF) have been studied for their use in the cement-based composites such as expanded perlite (Demirboga et al 2001; Kramar and Bindiganavile 2010; Lanzon and Garcıa-Ruiz 2008; Lu et al 2014), expanded glass beads
Summary
Lightweight concrete (LWC) has gained much more interest from the researchers in the last few decades its use could trace back to 3000 BC (Chandra and Berntsson 2002). In order to achieve the desired unit weight with adequate mechanical properties, careful selection and efficient utilization of lightweight filler (LWF) materials is imperative. The unit weight has been successfully achieved within the stipulated guidelines Such composites had lower mechanical strength and reduced overall performance. For example Yu et al used recycled expanded glass and achieved 28-day density of the composites as low as 1280 kg/m3 with good durability, the corresponding compressive strength was limited to 23.3 MPa (Spiesz et al 2013; Yu et al 2013). Chen and Liu developed expanded polystyrene foam composite with density of 400 and 800 kg/m3 with excellent thermal insulation properties (lower thermal conductivity coefficient) but the extremely low corresponding strength values of 3 and 13 MPa hampered the use in structural applications (Chen and Liu 2013). The aim of current study is to evaluate the properties of the composites with incorporation of an alternative lightweight material, the hollow glass microspheres, and comparing the resulting properties with cenosphere incorporated composites
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