Foamed concrete has been used historically as insulation material due to his low density. The
goal of this research is to improve this lightweight material so they can be used as insulation
materials as well as structural material, with sufficient strength, finding an optimum balance
between mechanical and insulation properties so that the material can be used as structural and
insulation material for building envelops.
As it is well known, all the engineering works requires a resistant and compact
concrete. However, in the standards constructions and rural buildings, for example, its required
materials and concretes with a good thermal insulation capacity. The thermal insulation capacity
of a building material increases as decreases its weight per unit of volume, i.e., the insulating
ability of a material increases as it increases the porosity of the material. Therefore, the current
concrete, whose advantages, from the technical point of view, resides indeed in its compactness,
cannot represent a solution such asinsulating material. That is why, the most interesting feature
of the conventional concrete must be replaced in order to achieve a porous concrete. This
porous concrete or lightweight concrete is a kind of special concrete whose main characteristic
is the porosity. To achieve this porous concrete, it is necessary to make modifications, since the
rules that govern the composition of the conventional concrete cannot be applied without
further for the composition of the second type of concrete, the lightweight concrete.
There exists different procedures to carry out in order to achieve a low specific weight material
with sufficient strength. The different procedures differ from each other by the type of
aggregate used in the mixing process, for example, it is possible to use directly lightweight
aggregates, conversely, to use regular aggregates with standard density in combination with
measures that ensure a special concrete porosity. This research is focused on finding a suitable
procedure between both ways of achieve foamed concrete with an adequate resistance.
The choice of one of the procedures mentioned for the obtainment of lightweight concrete
creation depends entirely in the available aggregates and the aim of the research. It is important
to mention that there is not an ideal granulometric composition applicable to the aggregates
destined to lightweight concrete. Therefore, there are many suitable granulometric
compositions for lightweight concrete.
This research focuses on the rules governing the manufacturing process of the lightweight
concrete in order to achieve an adequate composition of this and, also, to bring the structural
characteristic to this material.
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