Surely you have heard about such material as polystyrene concrete. A more adapted name is warm concrete. We will learn more about both its composition, characteristics, and application, advantages and disadvantages.
Warm concrete - what is it?
Warm (polystyrene concrete) concrete is a type of concrete mixture with expanded polystyrene granules that improve both the strength and thermal characteristics of the material. Also called warm concrete is a type of this material containing a number of additives that do not allow it to harden at sub-zero temperatures from the manufacturing process until the very application.
Polystyrene concrete components provide no need for additional insulation of the room. The composition of warm concrete is as follows:
- Portland cement.
- Water.
- Expanded polystyrene (expanded polystyrene, the price of which is relatively low) in granules.
- Wood-saponified resin (air-entraining inclusion).
The price of expanded polystyrene varies between 900-1200 rubles for 5 m2 (a set of several plates). Why is it not costly to include it in concrete.
Material application
Traditional usewarm concrete as follows:
- Construction of residential buildings.
- Monolithic housing construction.
- Sound and heat insulation of floors, ceilings, walls and slabs.
- Insulation of buildings and structures.
Also, the material is successfully used as a non-standard solution for:
-
Filling spaces:
- Construction of fences, barriers.
- Filling the internal cavity of the grillage.
- Filling the building envelope in the form of house walls.
-
Weight reduction for any structure:
- When building swimming pools.
- When arranging the floors of houseboats.
- When used as a load-bearing slab of corrugated board, it is filled from the inside with polystyrene concrete.
- In cases where hygroscopicity of the material is required (does not crack under the pressure of linear loads).
- When it is necessary to equip the floor slope in a floating structure, which helps to reduce the overall load on the entire structure.
The most widely used in construction are concrete blocks with a density of 200-600 kg/m3. The scope of their use directly depends on this characteristic:
- 450-600 - enclosing and load-bearing structures in low-rise buildings.
- 400-600 - external bearing walls in low-rise construction.
- 300-350 - curtain walls.
- 200-300 - used only as an insulating material.
Benefitsmaterial
Let's list the main advantages of warm concrete:
- The soundproofing and heat-insulating qualities of the material are several times higher than those of conventional concrete. This allows you not to deal with additional insulation with mineral wool, foam glass, foam plastic, etc.
- Warm concrete is a very economical material for the reason that it performs several functions at once.
- Polystyrene concrete has a mass several times smaller than ordinary concrete, which greatly facilitates loading/unloading and transportation.
- The mass load of a warm concrete structure is also less than standard, which reduces the cost of building a foundation.
- The ease of processing the material can be compared with wood: it is easy to saw, drill, hammer nails into it.
- Environmentally friendly material - consists of water, concrete and polystyrene foam.
- Water absorption of the material is average between foam concrete and ordinary concrete.
- From the previous paragraph comes another advantage - high frost resistance.
- Low vapor permeability.
Disadvantages of polystyrene concrete
The material also has a number of disadvantages:
- Fixing materials in its thickness hold loosely.
- The low density of the material affects the quality of installation of windows and doors - over time, they begin to loosen.
- Valuable properties of the material depend on the quality of its base - concrete.
- Plaster does not adhere well enough to warm concrete, causing the surfacemust be additionally prepared before plastering.
- In terms of shrinkage, it is three times ahead of both foam and aerated concrete - 1 mm/m.
- Blocks of material are not considered combustible, but they are also not fire resistant. This means that under the influence of high temperatures, the expanded polystyrene granules burst, which further leads to a loss of thermal insulation qualities.
We have analyzed the main characteristics of one of the modern materials - warm concrete with the addition of polystyrene foam balls. Like all other concrete mixtures, it is endowed with both a mass of advantages and disadvantages.
