We use cookies to enhance your experience. By continuing to browse this site you agree to our use of cookies. More info.
Lightweight concrete (density less than 1000 kg/m3) is often achieved by incorporating a substantial amount of foamy substance into fresh concrete. The latest study in the journal Cement and Concrete Composites looks into combining lightweight particles with prepared foam in foamy concrete to achieve a density of less than 1000 kg/m3 for 3D printing.
Study: Enhancing the properties of foam concrete 3D printing using porous aggregate, Cement and Concrete Composites . Image Credit: olpo/Shutterstock.com
3D concrete printing (3DCP) is a new technology altering the construction sector by combining construction automation and intelligent manufacturing. Compared to traditional building methods, 3DCP offers considerable reductions in waste generation, labor costs, time, and construction-related disasters, as well as the structural flexibility to design aesthetically complicated structures.
Extrusion-based 3DCP can be utilized for building large-scale buildings. Its popularity is mostly owing to the inherent benefits of the extrusion approach, which include the ease of application in large-scale 3D printing, the accessibility of specialized manufacturing machines or gantry platforms, the speedy fabrication method, and so on.
3D printed buildings are produced using the extrusion process by extruding and positioning a thin layer of new concrete strands following the geometry of the extrusion head.
The most frequent method for manufacturing ultralight concrete buildings using 3DCP is to utilize a compact concrete mix. Extrusion-based or powder bed 3D printing processes are used with a lightweight concrete mix comprised of permeable particles.
Foam concrete is a type of concrete mixture that is made by incorporating a significant number of air cavities into the new cementitious matrix. Air gaps can be generated using either manual foaming (pre-foaming technique) or chemically induced foaming.
While the former approach incorporates pre-made foam at a predetermined ratio into the new cementitious material, the latter system utilizes a gas-releasing ingredient (Al powder, Silica fume, and H2O2) into the concrete mixture, which creates pores in the concrete.
The pre-foaming process is the easiest and more efficient of the two because it provides excellent control of the ultimate viscosity and porosity characteristics of the generated aerated concrete.
Foam concrete offers several benefits over other lightweight concrete manufacturing technologies, including the ability to achieve ultra-low density (less than 300 kg/m3), good insulation qualities, auditory and fire resistance capabilities, and cost-effectiveness. As a result, the use of this concrete mixture is becoming more common in current building technologies such as façade architecture, boundary panels, ceilings, and exterior sheathing.
The fundamental difficulty in 3D printing traditional concrete mixture is the low yield stress in the pristine condition, which results in poor form preservation and manufacturability. In typical foam concrete, such low yield stress is required to minimize bubble disintegration and failure during the blending process.
Due to the high shear stress during the blending, the high yield stress of the base mix (the mix before blending with froth) can cause severe disintegration of bubbles. As a result, it is clear that the rheological qualities of concrete mixture, especially at low density, continue to pose a significant problem for 3DCP applications.
A proposed solution to the conflicting needs of low density and yield stress is to substitute sand in 3D printed mixtures with cementitious materials. To achieve the same density, the compact aggregates would significantly lower the quantity of foam concentration.
Two foam concrete blends with granular sand as constituents (M1 and M2) and three mixes using EP instead of fine sand (M3, M4, and M5) were developed. In the sand-based group, the initial density of M1 improves from 1244 to 1253 kg/m3 during extraction and approaches 1267 kg/m3 after 20 minutes, representing an overall increase of 1.8 percent in 20 minutes.
The dispersion dimension of the M1 was 213.5 mm, whereas the spreading width of the M2 mix with increased foam concentration was 226.6 mm. The spread diameters of the EP groups' M3, M4, and M5 blends were 167.5 mm, 193.5 mm, and 201.5 mm, correspondingly. The foam content in the various mixtures was 2.5 percent, 5%, and 7.5 percent of the concrete mixtures, respectively.
The mechanical properties of the EP group 3D printed concrete were superior in all three tested orientations when contrasted to the sand group samples.
In brief, using EP as a substitute for fine aggregates (i.e. sand) in 3D printing foam concrete significantly lowered the foam percentage required to achieve the same density while improving the strength and durability qualities.
More from AZoM: What is Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectrometry
Pasupathy K. et. al. (2022). Enhancing the properties of foam concrete 3D printing using porous aggregate, Cement and Concrete Composites. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0958946522002803?via%3Dihub
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author expressed in their private capacity and do not necessarily represent the views of AZoM.com Limited T/A AZoNetwork the owner and operator of this website. This disclaimer forms part of the Terms and conditions of use of this website.
Ibtisam graduated from the Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering. During his academic career, he has worked on several research projects and has successfully managed several co-curricular events such as the International World Space Week and the International Conference on Aerospace Engineering. Having won an English prose competition during his undergraduate degree, Ibtisam has always been keenly interested in research, writing, and editing. Soon after his graduation, he joined AzoNetwork as a freelancer to sharpen his skills. Ibtisam loves to travel, especially visiting the countryside. He has always been a sports fan and loves to watch tennis, soccer, and cricket. Born in Pakistan, Ibtisam one day hopes to travel all over the world.
Please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper or report:
Abbasi, Ibtisam. (2022, July 19). How Does the Introduction of a Porous Aggregate Improve Foam Concrete 3D Printing?. AZoM. Retrieved on July 31, 2022 from https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=59582.
Abbasi, Ibtisam. "How Does the Introduction of a Porous Aggregate Improve Foam Concrete 3D Printing?". AZoM. 31 July 2022. <https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=59582>.
Abbasi, Ibtisam. "How Does the Introduction of a Porous Aggregate Improve Foam Concrete 3D Printing?". AZoM. https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=59582. (accessed July 31, 2022).
Abbasi, Ibtisam. 2022. How Does the Introduction of a Porous Aggregate Improve Foam Concrete 3D Printing?. AZoM, viewed 31 July 2022, https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=59582.
Do you have a review, update or anything you would like to add to this news story?
At the Advanced Materials Show 2022, AZoM caught up with the CEO of Cambridge Smart Plastics, Andrew Terentjev. In this interview, we discuss the company's novel technologies and how they could revolutionize how we think about plastics.
At the Advanced Materials Show in June 2022, AZoM spoke with Ben Melrose from International Syalons about the advanced materials market, Industry 4.0, and efforts to move toward net-zero.
At the Advanced Materials Show, AZoM spoke with Vig Sherrill from General Graphene about the future of graphene and how their novel production technique will lower costs to open up a whole new world of applications in the future.
Discover the OTT Parsivel², a laser disdrometer that can be used to measure all precipitation types. It allows users to collect data on the size and speed of falling particles.
Environics offers stand alone permeation systems that can be used for single or multiple disposable permeation tubes.
Grabner Instruments’ MiniFlash FPA Vision Autosampler is a 12-position autosampler. It is an automated accessory designed to be used with the MINIFLASH FP Vision Analyzer.
This article provides an end-of-life assessment of lithium-ion batteries, focusing on the recycling of an ever-growing amount of spent Li-Ion batteries in order to work toward a sustainable and circular approach to battery use and reuse.
Corrosion is the degradation of an alloy caused by its exposure to the environment. Corrosion deterioration of metallic alloys exposed to the atmosphere or other adverse conditions is prevented using a variety of techniques.
Due to the ever-increasing demand for energy, the demand for nuclear fuel has also increased, which has further created a significant increase in the requirement for post-irradiation examination (PIE) techniques.
AZoM.com - An AZoNetwork Site
Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2022