Experimental Study on Physical and Mechanical Properties of Lightweight Cellular Concrete Specimens Cast in Field and Laboratory

Abstract

This paper presents a series of laboratory tests for evaluating the material properties of Lightweight cellular concrete (LCC) with different cement-to-fly ash ratios and at different ages. LCC specimens used in this study were cast in the field and/or laboratory. Large and small direct shear box tests were used to determine the shear strengths of LCC specimens. The test results show that the average wet densities for the LCC specimens cast in the laboratory ranged from 460 to 491 kg/m³, whereas the average wet densities for the specimens cast in the field ranged from 480 to 578 kg/m³ at the age of 28 days. The permeability values for the LCC specimens cast in the field ranged from 5.4 × 10^-7 to 7.7 × 10^-6 m/s and the permeability values for the LCC specimens cast in the laboratory ranged from 6.8 × 10^-7 to 2.5 × 10^-6 m/s. The measured peak friction angles of the LCC specimens from the small direct shear box tests ranged from 19° to 63°, whereas the measured peak friction angles of the LCC specimens from large direct shear box tests ranged from 23° to 79°. The average measured compressive strengths for the LCC specimens cast in the field and laboratory ranged from 0.43 to 1.15 MPa and 1.08 to 1.11 MPa at the age of 28 days, respectively. LCC specimens showed shrinkage behavior when subjected to wet–dry cycles and had good resistance to freeze–thaw cycles following ASTM D560/560M. The paper also compares the material properties of LCC measured in this study with those reported in the literature and the comparison shows good agreement overall.