Introduction
No-fines concrete is a concrete containing little or no fine
aggregate. The coarse aggregate should preferably be a
single-size material (nominal maximum sizes 10 mm and
20 mm being the most common). However, blended
aggregates (10 and 7 mm; and 20 and 14 mm) have been
found to perform satisfactorily. Because it is characterised
by uniformly distributed voids, it is not suitable for
reinforced or prestressed concrete construction.
Applications
■ Walls in buildings
Primarily in external and internal walls of low-rise
and multi-storey flats/units.
■ Car park paving
Provides free-draining pavements for light traffic
■ Tennis courts
Using a small nominal aggregate size, eg 5 mm,
a free-draining playing surface is achieved.
■ Drainage layers
Used as drainage layers on civil engineering projects.
20-mm aggregate size is preferred but the surface
finish is poorer than that achieved using 10-mm
aggregate.
■ Levelling courses
Has been used as a lightweight screed for levelling on
floors and roofs.
Mix Proportions
Generally, the cement:aggregate ratio by volume is in the
range 1:6 to 1:8. Leaner mixes (1:8 to 1:10) reduce the
likelihood of the pores being blocked by cement paste.
Thus for drainage layers where lower strength can be
tolerated, 1:10 is preferred. The water-cement ratio needs
to be kept low, eg 0.4–0.45, to ensure the cement paste
coats the aggregates and does not run off.
No-Fines Concrete is a method of producing light concrete by omitting
the fines from conventional concrete. No-fines concrete as the term
implies, is a kind of concrete from which the fine aggregate fraction
has been omitted. This concrete is made up of only coarse aggregate,
cement and water. Very often only single sized coarse aggregate, of size
passing through 20 mm retained on 10 mm is used. No-fines concrete is
becoming popular because of some of the advantages it possesses over the
conventional concrete.
The single sized aggregates make a good
no-fines concrete, which in addition to having large voids and hence
light in weight, also offers architecturally attractive look.
Mix-proportion of No-Fines Concrete
No-fines
concrete is generally made with the aggregate/cement ratio from 6 : 1
to 10 :1. Aggregates used are normally of size passing through 20 mm and
retained on 10 mm. Unlike the conventional concrete, in which strength
is primarily controlled by the water/cement ratio, the strength of
no-fines concrete, is dependent on the water/cement ratio, aggregate
cement ratio and unit weight of concrete.
The water/cement ratio
for satisfactory consistency will vary between a narrow range of 0.38
and 0.52. Water/cement ratio must be chosen with care. If too low a
water/cement ratio is adopted, the paste will be so dry that aggregates
do not get properly smeared with paste which results in insufficient
adhesion between the particles. On the other hand, if the water/cement
ratio is too high, the paste flows to the bottom of the concrete,
particularly when vibrated and fills up the voids between the aggregates
at the bottom and makes that portion dense. This condition also reduces
the adhesion between aggregate and aggregate owing to the paste
becoming very thin.
No standard method is available, like slump
test or compacting factor test for measuring the consistency of no-fines
concrete. Perhaps a good, experienced visual examination and trial and
error method may be the best guide for deciding optimum water/cement
ratio.
No-fines concrete, when conventional aggregates are used,
may show a density of about 1600 to 1900 kg/m3, but when no-fines
concrete is made by using light weight aggregate, the density may come
to about 360 kg/m3. No-fines concrete does not pose any serious problem
for compaction. Use of mechanical compaction or vibratory methods are
not required. Simple rodding is sufficient for full compaction.
No-fines
concrete does not give much side thrust to the formwork as the
particles are having point to point contact and concrete does not flow.
Therefore, the side of the formworks can be removed in a time interval
shorter than for conventional concrete. However, formwork may be
required to be kept for a longer time, when used as a structural member,
as the strength of concrete is comparatively less. The compressive
strength of no-fines concrete varies between 1.4 MPa to about 14 MPa.
Table 12.5 shows the compressive strength of no-fines concrete.
The
bond strength of no-fines concrete is very low and, therefore,
reinforcement is not used in conjunction with no-fines concrete.
However, if reinforcement is required to be used in no-fines concrete,
it is advisable to smear the reinforcement with cement paste to improve
the bond and also to protect it from rusting.
No comments:
Post a Comment