Investigation of the Effects of Density on Physical, Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Foam Concrete

Foam concrete; It is a type of lightweight concrete that can be produced by adding cement, water, surfactant, and if desired, sand or fine aggregate. It has high fluidity in fresh form and low density after hardening. It can provide a thermal conductivity of 90 mW/mK at a density of 400 kg/m3. In this study, the foam concrete samples were produced by adding 80 g/L density foam to the mortars prepared at 300 kg/m3 cement dosage and 0.30 water/solid ratio using CEM I 42.5 R type Portland cement, limestone powder, polypropylene fiber, and superplasticizer additive. The compressive strength, split tensile strength and thermal conductivity properties of the samples produced in 12 different dry densities in the range of 300-1400 kg/m3 were tested. As the dry density values of the samples increased, the thermal conductivity and compressive strength values increased. Equations were proposed to estimate the compressive strength and thermal conductivity depending on the dry density of the foam concrete with limestone powder aggregate from the findings.