Development of lightweight concrete using the PCM II

Purpose: Foam concrete is the concrete that contains large amount of air voids inside. In general, the density of foam concrete depends on parameters like water/binder ratio, foam volume, aggregate and pozzolan content, etc. Method: In this study, the effect of foam volume and fly ash content on dry density is investigated intensively in order to find the relationship between each parameter and their abilities to counteract with each other. According to the above information, though there are quite a number of studies on the effect micro fiber on foam concrete at low volume fractions, there is still lack of information especially on the high fiber content side. The objective of the second study is to investigate further on the use of micro fiber at higher volume fraction and fill in the lacking information.Beside from this study, the investigation of the effect of micro-fiber (polypropylene) to enhance the properties of foam concrete is also carried out. Result: Of the two variables that are investigated in this study, the foam volume and the fly ash content, show significant effect on the properties of foam concrete. The foam volume tends to decrease the density and strength of foam concrete. In the second part of our study, a large fibre volume fraction is proved to be able to evidently increase the flexural strength of foam concrete up to about 40% due to the effect of fibre bridging over the crack and a significant number of fibres that intercepts the crack surfaces. However, the compressive strength is found to decrease severely due to the occurrence of large pores as the result of fibre being added into concrete mixture.