International Journal of Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 2, No.

2 December 2014

Materials, Production, Properties and Application

of Aerated Lightweight Concrete: Review
Ali J. Hamad
Department of Building and Construction Technology Engineering/Engineering Technical College, Mosul, Iraq
Email: alijihadengineer@yahoo.com

international market for more than 20 years [4]. Foamed

concrete have high flowability, low self-weight,
minimum consumption of aggregate, controlled low
strength, and excellent thermal insulation properties. The
density of foamed concrete has wide range (1600400kg/m3), with appropriate control in the dosage of the
foam, can be obtained for application to structural,
partition, insulation, and filling grades [6].

AbstractAerated lightweight concrete have many

advantages when compared with conventional concrete such
as advanced strength to weight ratio, lower coefficient of
thermal expansion, and good sound insulation as a result of
air voids within aerated concrete. This paper is attention to
classified of aerated lightweight concrete into foamed
concrete and autoclaved concrete. Also, it is exhibits the raw
materials used in aerated concrete, types of agent,
properties and applications. The production method is
classified for each foamed and autoclaved concrete. The
literature review of aerated lightweight properties is focuses
on the porosity, permeability, compressive strength and
splitting strength.
Index Termsaerated concrete, cellular concrete, foamed
concrete, autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC)

I.

INTRODUCTION

The aerated concrete is a one types of lightweight

concrete. Aerated concrete is also well-known as a
cellular concrete [1]. It can be divided into two main
types according to the method of production. They are
foamed concrete (non-autoclaved aerated concrete
(NAAC)) and autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC). i)
Foamed concrete is produced by injecting preformed
stable foam or by adding a special air-entraining
admixture known as a foaming agent into a base mix of
cement
paste
or
mortar
(cement+water
or
cement+sand+water). ii) The AAC is produced by adding
in a predetermined amount of aluminum powder and
other additives into slurry of ground high silica sand,
cement or lime and water [2], [3], as shown in Fig. 1. The
background of foamed concrete began much later than
lightweight aggregate concrete [4]. Foamed concrete is
not a particularly new material, it is first recorded use
date back to the early 1920s. The application of foamed
concrete for construction works was not recognized until
the late 1970s [5]. Beside the AAC began approximately
100 years ago. In 1914, the Swedes first discovered a
mixture of cement, lime, water and sand that was
expanded by the adding aluminum powder to generate
hydrogen gas in the cement slurry. Prior to that, inventive
minds had tried beaten egg whites, yeast and other
unusual methods of adding air to the concrete. It was
reported that foamed concrete was developed in Europe
over 60 years ago and has since then been on the

Figure 1. Classification of aerated lightweight concrete

A.

Foam Agent
The foam agent used to obtain foamed concrete. It is
defined as air entraining agent. The foam agent is the
most essential influence on the foamed concrete. The
foam agents when added into the mix water it will
produce discrete bubbles cavities which become
incorporated in the cement paste. The properties of
foamed concrete are critically dependent upon the quality
of the foam. Foam agent can be classified according to
types of foaming agent: i) Synthetic-suitable for densities
of 1000kg/m3 and above. ii) Protein-suitable for densities
from 400kg/m3 to 1600 kg/m3. Foams from protein-based
have a weight of around 80g/litter. Protein-based foaming
agents come from animal proteins out of horn, blood,
bones of cows, pigs and other remainders of animal
carcasses. This leads not only to occasional variations in
quality, due to the differing raw materials used in
different batches, but also to a very intense stench of such

Manuscript received January 31, 2014; revised March 19, 2014.

2014 Engineering and Technology Publishing
doi: 10.12720/ijmse.2.2.152-157

152

International Journal of Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 2, No. 2 December 2014

The production of AAC requires aluminum powders

that contain fractions finer than 100 or 50m. This is
important in order to obtain required mechanical
properties of the aerated concrete [10].

foaming agents. Synthetic foams have a density of about

40g/litter. Synthetic foaming agents are purely chemical
products. They are very stable at concrete densities above
1000kg/m3 and give good strength. Their shelf life is
about 1 year under sealed conditions. Synthetic foam has
finer bubble sizes compared to protein but they generally
give lower strength foamed concrete especially at
densities below 1000kg/m3 [5], [7], [8].

II.

MIX PROPORTION AND PRODUCTION OF

AERATED CONCRETE

A. Foamed Concrete
Foamed concrete is produced either by pre-foaming
method or mixed foaming method. Pre-foaming method
involves the separate production of a base mix cement
slurry (cement paste or mortar) and a stably preformed
aqueous (foam agent with water) and then the thorough
blending of this foam into a base mix. In mixed foaming,
the surface active agent is mixed with the base mixture
ingredients and during the process of mixing, foam is
produced resulting in cellular structure in concrete as
shown in Fig. 2. The preformed foam can be either wet or
dry foam. The wet foam is produced by spraying a
solution of foaming agent over a fine mesh, has 2-5mm
bubble size and is relatively less stable. Dry foam is
produced by forcing the foaming agent solution through a
series of high density restrictions and forcing compressed
air simultaneously into the mixing chamber. Dry foam is
extremely stable and has a size smaller than 1mm [4], [6],
[11]. Table I shows the properties of foamed concrete
[12].

B.

Aluminum Powder
Aluminum powder is usually used to obtain autoclaved
aerated concrete by a chemical reaction generating a gas
in fresh mortar, so that when it sets it contains a large
number of gas bubbles [9]. Aluminum is used as a
foaming agent in AAC production worldwide and it is
widely proven as the best solution for its purpose. When
aluminum is added (usually at about 0.2% to 0.5% by dry
weight of cement) to the mixing ingredients [10], the
Aluminum powder can be classified into three types:
atomized, flake and granules. In case of an atomized
particle, its length, width and thickness are all of
approximately the same order where the length or width
of a flake particle maybe several hundred times it
thickness. Aluminum powder in the AAC industry is
often made from foil scrap and exists of microscopic
flake-shaped aluminum particles.
Aluminum powder with grain size less than 100m
and particularly with fractions less than 50m, can easily
form highly flammable aero suspensions (dust clouds)
during pouring or vibration.

Figure 2. Classification process of production method for foamed concrete

TABLE I. TYPICAL PROPERTIES OF FOAMED CONCRETE [12]

3

Dry density (kg/m )

400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600

Compressive strength
(MPa)
0.5-1.0
1.0-1.5
1.5-2.0
2.5-3.0
4.5-5.5
6.0-8.0
7.5-10

2014 Engineering and Technology Publishing

Modulus of elasticity (Evalue) (GPa)

0.8-1.0
1.0-1.5
2.0-2.5
2.5-3.0
3.5-4.0
5.0-6.0
10.0-12.0

153

Thermal conductivity (3%

moisture) (W/mK)
0.10
0.11
0.17-0.23
0.23-0.30
0.38-0.42
0.50-0.55
0.62-0.66

Drying shrinkage (%)

0.30-0.35
0.22-0.25
0.20-0.22
0.15-0.18
0.09-0.11
0.07-0.09
0.06-0.07

International Journal of Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 2, No. 2 December 2014

rises and is replaced by air which is a denser gas that gets

into the mix as the hydrogen foams up out of the material.
The volume increase is dependent upon the amount of
aluminum powder/paste that is introduced to react with
the calcium hydroxide in the mixture. This reaction is
shown in following equations [13], [14].

B. Autoclaved Aerated Concrete

Raw materials which are suitable for autoclaved
aerated concrete are fine grading materials. Silica or
quartz sand, lime, cement and aluminum powder are main
raw materials for producing AAC. Silica sands
percentage is higher than the other aggregates in aerated
concrete mix. Both silica and quartz sand are mineral
based aggregates which can be obtained from broken
rocks or granites. At the same time fly ash, slag, or mine
tailings can be used as aggregates in combination with
silica [13]. All fine aggregates as silica sand or quartz
sand and lime are mixed with cement. Then water will be
added to this mix and hydration starts with cement
forming bond between fine aggregates and cement paste.
After mixing process, expansion agent is added to the
mix for increasing its volume and this increase can be
from 2 to 5 times more than original volume of the paste.
Finally, expansion agent which is used for this process is
aluminum powder; this material reacts with calcium
hydroxide which is the product of reaction between
cement and water. This reaction between aluminum
powder and calcium hydroxide causes forming of
microscopic air bubbles which results in increasing of
pastes volume as shown in Fig. 3. The hydrogen that is
formed in this process bubbles up out of the mixture and
is replaced by air. The hydrogen, which is a lighter gas,

2Al+3Ca(OH)2 +6H2O

3CaO.Al2O3.6H2O+3H2 (1)

Aluminum powder + Hydrated Lime

Tricalcium

Hydrate + Hydrogen

The less expansion that is induced will produce a

higher strength material (more dense) versus the
maximum amount of expansion induced, which produces
a lower strength material (less dense) [13], [14].
Autoclave is a strong, pressurized, steam-heated vessel.
This large steam-heated vessel is in effect a large pressure
cooker by which the autoclaved aerated concrete is cured.
Autoclaving is a process whereby the concrete is cured in
a chamber with high temperature and high pressure for a
certain amount of time. A wide range in the pressure (416MPa) and duration (8-16 hours) of the autoclaving
process may be used. Furthermore, they reported that
autoclaving reduces the drying shrinkage in aerated
concrete significantly, and it is essential if aerated
concrete products are required within acceptable levels of
strength and shrinkage [15]. Table II shows the properties
of AAC concrete [12].

Figure 3. Process phases of AAC production

TABLE II. TYPICAL PROPERTIES OF AUTOCLAVED AERATED CONCRETE [12]

Dry density
(kg/m3)

Compressive strength
(MPa)

Flexural strength
(MPa)

Modulus of elasticity
(E-value) (GPa)

450
525
600
675
750

3.2
4.0
4.5
6.3
7.5

0.65
0.75
0.85
1.00
1.25

1.6
2.0
2.4
2.5
2.7

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154

Thermal conductivity
(3% moisture)
(W/mK)
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.20

International Journal of Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 2, No. 2 December 2014

an applied pressure head. Concrete is a kind of porous

material that allows water under pressure to pass slowly
through it. The steady-flow method is performed on a
saturated specimen in which a pressure head is applied to
one end of the sample. When a steady-flow condition is
reached, the measurement of the outflow enables the
determination of the coefficient of permeability, by using
Darcys law [3]:

III. PROPERTIES
A. Porosity (Air-Voids) and Permeability
The porosity in cement-based material is classified as
gel pores, capillary pores, macro-pores due to deliberately
entrained air, and macro-pores due to inadequate
compaction. The gel pores do not influence the strength
of concrete through its porosity, although these pores are
directly related to creep and shrinkage. Capillary pores
and other large pores are responsible for reduction in
strength and elasticity etc. [11]. Aerated concrete have
higher strength when the air-void was narrower
distributions shows. The fly ash may be used as filler to
help in achieving more uniform distribution of air-voids
by providing uniform coating on each bubble and thereby
prevents merging of bubbles. At higher foam volume,
merging of bubbles results in wide distribution of void
sizes leading to lower strength [16]. (Nambiar and
Ramamurthy, 2007) [11] have discussed the air-void
characterization of foam concrete. They investigated the
air-void parameters such as: volume, size and spacing of
air voids to study their influence on strength and density.
The findings indicated that the mixes with a narrower airvoid size distribution showed higher strength. At higher
foam volume, merging of bubbles seems to produce
larger voids, and results in the wide distribution of void
sizes and lower strength. Air-void shape has no influence
on the properties of foamed concrete.
The Permeability is known as the ease with which a
fluid will pass through a porous medium under the action
of a pressure differential and it is a flow property [2].
Permeability of aerated concrete is greatly influenced
by the type, size and distribution of the pores, and not the
pore volume. Pores are classified into two types; open
pores, which connect to the outside boundary of the
material, and closed pores, which are isolated from the
outside and may contain fluid. Permeability of aerated
concrete is contributed by the open pores and not the
closed pores. Closed pore materials are used mainly for
sonic and thermal insulators or low-specific gravity
structural components [4]. Fig. 4 shows the differences
between porosity and permeability [2], [17].

(3)
where:
k1: coefficient of permeability (m/sec),
dq/dt: steady flow rate (m3/sec),
L: thickness or length of the specimen (m),
H: drop in the hydraulic head across the sample (m),
A: cross-sectional area of the sample (m2).
B. Compressive Strength and Splitting Tensile Strength
Compressive strength of foamed concrete influenced
by many factor such as density, age, curing method,
component and mix proportion [8]. (Bing, Zhen and Ning,
2012) [18] investigated the compressive strength of
foamed concrete in almost all mixes displayed a
continuous increase with age. The rate of strength
development was greater initially and decreased as age
increased. However, a comparison of strengths at 7 days
revealed that concretes with no silica fume developed
almost 70-75% of the 28-day strength. (Just and
Middendorf, 2009) [19] founded that the increase in the
compressive strength depends on the mass density. The
strength also increases with rising mass density. For a
mass density of 700kg/m3 the compressive strength
increase amounts to a calculated 17% and when the mass
density rises to 1100kg/m3 the compressive strength
increases to 20%. The smaller the diameter of the pores,
the more regularly they are formed. Regularly formed air
voids increase the compressive strength with comparable
densities. (Mydin and Wang, 2012) [20] studied the
mechanical properties of foamed concrete exposed to
high temperatures. Two densities of foamed concrete
were tested, 650 and 1000kg/m3. The results consistently
demonstrated that the loss in stiffness for the foamed
concrete at elevated temperatures occurs predominantly
after about 90C, regardless of density. This indicates that
the primary mechanism causing stiffness degradation is
micro-cracking, which occurs as water expands and
evaporates from the porous body. Reducing the density of
foamed concrete reduces its strength and stiffness.
(Richard, Ramli and Al-Shareem, 2013) [21] have
investigated the experimental production of sustainable
lightweight foamed concrete. The base mix parameters to
produce a sustainable foamed concrete by substituting
cement which is a source of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse
emission elements, with a cementitious material, fly ash
within a range of 10, 20, 30 and 50% was used. The
results show that the compressive strength was reduced
relatively to the volume of fly ash present in the samples.
The higher the fly ash volume, the lower the compressive
strength. The production of sustainable concrete hence

Figure 4. Schematic diagram exhibiting differences between porosity

and permeability [2], [17]

The test of permeability mean measures the flow rate

of a liquid passing right through the test specimen under

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International Journal of Materials Science and Engineering Vol. 2, No. 2 December 2014

becomes possible with the substitution of the volume of

hydraulic cements reduces carbon dioxide emission.
(Awang and Noordin, 2002) [22] conducted a research to
study the effect of alkaline-resistant glass fiber on
compressive strength of lightweight foamed concrete.
Alkali-Resistant glass fiber was added to foamed concrete
mix using three different percentages (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%).
The experimental findings indicate that the increase of
fiber content can produce stronger foamed concrete. The
results of tests for compressive, splitting and flexural
strength of glass fiber reinforced foamed concrete show
significant increases when the percentages of glass fibers
increase. (Na Ayudhya, 2011) [23] studied the
compressive and splitting tensile strength of autoclaved
aerated concrete (AAC) containing perlite aggregate and
polypropylene fiber subjected to high temperatures. The
polypropylene (PP) fiber content of 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2%
by volume was added to the mixture. The results showed
that the unheated compressive and splitting tensile
strength of AAC containing PP fiber was not significantly
higher than those containing no PP fiber. Furthermore,
the presence of PP fiber was not more effective for
residual compressive strength than splitting tensile
strength. (Salman and Hassan, 2010) [9] say the density
and compressive strength of gas concrete decreases with
the increase of percentage of aluminum powder (Al). The
addition of Al also increases the volume of gas concrete.
It was between (13.3-50.8)% and (18.7-61.3)% for air
and steam curing respectively when Al was between (0.10.4)%. The test results showed that the best percentage of
Al was 0.2% by weight of cement which gives density
1389kg/m3 and compressive strength 0.26MPa for air
curing and 1431kg/m3 and 0.55MPa for steam curing.
IV. ADVANTAGES AND APPLICATIONS OF AERATED
LIGHTWEIGHT CONCRETE

V. CONCLUSIONS
Aerated lightweight concrete is unlike conventional
concrete in some mix materials and properties. Aerated
lightweight concrete does not contain coarse aggregate,
and it is possess many beneficial such as low density with
higher strength compared with conventional concrete,
enhanced in thermal and sound insulation, reduced dead
load in the could result several advantages in decrease
structural elements and reduce the transferred load to the
foundations and bearing capacity. Foamed concrete is
different in agent of forming air-voids as compared with
autoclaved aerated concrete. The air-voids in foamed
concrete formed by foam agent, this operation is physical
processing. Against the air-voids in autoclaved aerated
concrete formed by addition aluminum powder to the
other materials and reaction between them, and this
operation is chemical processing. The air-voids is
homogenous distribution within aerated lightweight
concrete. The compressive strength of foamed concrete
can be developed reach to structural strength compared
with autoclaved aerated concrete. Aerated lightweight
concrete is consider economy in materials and
consumption of by-product and wastes materials such as
fly ash.
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2014 Engineering and Technology Publishing

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Ali J. Hamad was born in Mosul, Iraq in 1989.
He received the B.Sc. in building and
construction technical engineering department
from engineering technical college of Mosul.
He is a master candidate in construction
materials engineering department from the
engineering technical college of Mosul.