INFLUENCE OF NATURAL LIGHTWEIGHT AGGREGATES ON THE PROPERTIES OF CONCRETE

Abstract

As a result of the developing technology, the construction industry has also gone to a great interest to discover new materials. A lot of literature research has been done for the lightweight aggregates used in the construction industry. In this study, different types of lightweight aggregates are used for porous lightweight concrete production. For this reason, 8-15 mm pumice and expanded perlite were obtained from Ankara region, 4-8 mm pumice was supplied from Manisa Salihli, volcanic tuff aggregate was obtained from Antalya and expanded clay was supplied from Holland. Before lightweight concrete production, aggregates were separated into adequate particle classes by sieve analysis in diameter with 4-8 mm, 8-11.2 mm and 11.2-15 mm. The expanded clay had a size of 0-4 mm and was separated into 0-1 mm and 1-4 mm sizes. The fresh concrete properties are determined by slump and flow table tests. Hardened composite properties are evaluated by unit weight, ultrasound pulse velocity, and compressive strength tests on 15x15x15 cm cubic specimens. According to test results structural lightweight concrete can be produced with those aggregates. Expanded clay and perlite reduced the workability of the fresh concrete. Volcanic tuff and pumice provided to reach compressive strength values over 25 MPa.