High strength lightweight concrete with expandable perlite as the aggregate

Abstract

Lightweight concrete has been an interest due to its advantages compared to normal concrete. Lightweight concrete can be produced by the use of lightweight aggregates. In this study lightweight concretes were made with the composition of expandable perlite combined natural sand with each volume is 50% and concrete with 100% expandable perlite as the aggregates. The volume of the aggregates was varied from 80% up to 89%. The concretes were measured for their density and tested for the mechanical and absorption properties. As the results, expandable perlite obviously has the effect in reducing the concrete density. Nevertheless, the strength decrease as the expanded perlite aggregate increase. The optimum lightweight concrete that acceptable as the international standard is with the aggregates of expandable perlite combined natural sand having the 50% of each volume with the aggregates composition is 80%.