Lightweight Concrete: Innovations and Applications

Lightweight concrete has become more and more popular in recent years, in the field of construction due to its aspects like cost effectiveness and design flexibility. The density of lightweight concrete is less than compared to the conventional concrete which reduces the weight of the structure while providing sufficient strength. With increase in the advances in the construction field, lightweight concrete is used in number of applications. The purpose of this paper is to study the properties, materials used, production method and various advances that have been recently adopted in lightweight concrete. With wide range of applications, it also has some limitations which we will discuss later in the paper. The paper describes the use of different materials like coconut shell, oil palm shell, pumice etc. in lightweight concrete and also discuss about the mechanical properties like compressive strength, split tensile strength, workability, flexural strength and durability of the light weight concrete. The development of recent advances has also been included in the paper. At last, the various challenges and need of future research are also discussed.