Determination of Optimum Diatomite Ratio in Foam Concrete Production

One of the most used construction materials today is concrete. Accordingly, concrete and concrete technology are developing rapidly. One of these developments is foam concrete. Research on foam concrete has increased day by day. One of the reasons for this is that foam concrete has a low density and high thermal insulation properties. In this study, the compressive strength and unit volume weight properties of foam concrete produced using diatomite sand (0-4 mm), a natural lightweight material, were emphasized. In the study, 5 different foam concrete designs were made in order to determine the mixing ratios of the foam concrete that gave the highest compressive strength and the lowest unit volume weight value. In these designs, the components other than diatomite (W/C ratio, micro silica sand, foaming agent, water) were kept constant, while diatomite was added at 32, 36, 40, 44 and 48% of the cement weight. The most suitable technical features in hardened foam concrete were determined as 860 kg/m3 unit volume weight, 5,23 MPa compressive strength, 4,27% water absorption, 1,56 km/s ultrasound transmission speed of foam concrete samples produced with 36% of cement weight. As a result of the experimental studies, the optimum diatomite ratio in foam concrete production was found to be 36% of cement weight.