What is the material required for foam concrete

Foam concrete is a type of lightweight concrete that is manufactured from cement, sand or fly ash, water, and the foam. Foam concrete is in the form of foamed grout or foamed mortar.

Cement for Foam Concrete

Ordinary Portland cement is commonly used, but rapid hardening cement can also be used if necessary. Foam concrete can incorporate a wide range of cement and other combination, for example, 30 percent of cement, 60 percent of fly ash and limestone in 10 percent. The content of cement range from 300 to 400 kg/m3.

Sand for Foam Concrete

The maximum size of sand used can be 5mm. Use of finer sands up to 2mm with amount passing through 600 micron sieve range from 60 to 95%.

Pozzolanas

The supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag have been used widely in the manufacture of foam concrete. The amount of fly ash used ranges from 30 to 70 percent. White GGBFS range from 10 to 50%. This reduces the amount of cement used and economical.

Silica fume can be added to increase the strength; at an amount of 10 percentage by mass.

Foam

The hydrolyzed proteins or the synthetic surfactants are the most common forms based on which foams are made. The synthetic based foam agents are easier to handle and are cheap. They can be stored for a longer period.

Lesser energy is required to produce these foams. The protein based foam are costly but have high strength and performance. The foam can be of two types: wet foam and dry foam.

Wet foams with densities lesser than 100 kg/m3 are not recommended for the manufacture of foam concrete. They have a very loosely place large bubble structure. To a fine mesh, the agent and the water are being sprayed. This process produces foam that has bubbles with size ranging from 2 to 5mm.

Dry foam is highly stable in nature. A solution of water and the foaming agent is forced by restrictions into a mixing chamber by compressor air. The produced foam have bubble size which is smaller than the wet foam. That is less than 1mm. These give a structure of bubbles, which are evenly arranged.

Other Materials and Aggregates for Foam Concrete

The coarse aggregate or other replacement for coarse cannot be used. This is because these materials would sink in the lightweight foam.

LD2000 is one of our most hot sale high capacity foam concrete mixing machine. It includes feeding system, pumping system, foaming system and mixing system. All the procedures are program controlled, very labor saving. The features are as below:

1. Combining mixer and foam generator together, high mechanization and easy to operate.

2. The mixing paddle is specially designed, mixing efficiency and quality is improved greatly.

3. Due to the big volume of mixing tank, the capacity is much higher.

4. Feeding, water supplying and foam amount can be weighted accurately, thereby ensure the quality of final foam concrete.