Cement Mortar | Cement Concrete | Concrete Materials
Cement Mortar | Cement Concrete | Concrete Materials
What is meant by Cement Mortar?
Mortar is a workable paste which can harden to bind construction blocks such as bricks, stones, and concrete masonry elements, to seal and fill the irregular gaps between these blocks, spreading the load of them evenly. In many cases, to add decorative patterns or colours to masonry walls.
Mortar is a material used in masonry work to fill the gaps between the blocks and bricks. Mortar is a mixture of a binder such as cement or lime, sand, and water and can be applied as a paste which then cured to hardened.
What is Cement
Cement is the binding component in both mortar and concrete. It is commonly made of clay, limestone, shells, and silica sand, with limestone being the most prevalent component.
These ingredients are crushed and mixed with other ingredients (with iron ore), and then heated to about 2,700 Fahrenheit. These components, called clinker, is ground into a fine powder and packaged to use for mixing various cementitious construction materials, including concrete and mortar.
You may have seen cement referred to as Portland cement. It is because it was first made in the 1800s in England by a mason, Joseph Aspdin of Leeds. Joseph Aspdin likened the colour to the stone from the quarries on the island of Portland, off the coast of England.
In Today’s construction world, Portland type of cement remains the most commonly used type of cement building and construction materials. It is a type of “hydraulic” type of cement, which simply means that it will set and harden when combined with water.
Mortar
Mortar is yet another building and construction material composed of cement, which in this case is mixed with water and fine sands, with lime added to improve the durability of the mixture. Again, adding water to this mix activates the cement in order to cure or harden, just as with concrete.
Compared, mortar is not as strong as concrete and commonly is not used as a sole building material. Instead, is it the “glue” that holds together concrete block, bricks, stone, and other masonry materials?
The word “mortar” comes from Latin mortarium, meaning crushed cement mortar becomes hard when it cures, resulting in a solid rigid structure. The mortar, however, functions as a weaker element than the building bricks or blocks and serves as the sacrificial element in the masonry, because mortar is easier and less expensive to repair than the building blocks.
Mortar is typically sold in bags, in a dry premixed form that you mix with water. Mortar can also be mixed on-site, using a cement mixer or thoroughly mixing with a shovel or hoe in a wheelbarrow or mixing tub.
Uses of Mortar
Mortar mix can be used for construction and repair of the block, brick, and stone for barbecues, wall, pillars, tuckpointing mortar joints, and planters.
Mortar mix is more made and designed for bonding stone, brick, and concrete block so it may not be the right choice for a finished surface.
Types of Mortar
There are many different types of mortar manufactured for various applications and purposes. When working with building blocks or brick and other masonry units, it is essential to use the right kind of mortar for the masonry, as some mortars are too hard for some types of masonry and can crack if misused.
Grout is a type of product that can be seen as a form of mortar but formulated without the lime additive. Mortar has a higher water content to allow it to flow and fill gaps between ceramic and stone tiles. Because of its high-water content, grout is not a binding material but serves merely to fill gaps.
Concrete Materials
What is Concrete/Concrete Definition
Concrete is a complete construction type of material used for foundation walls, patios, concrete slabs, beams, and many other masonry structures. Concrete is uniquely versatile as it starts out as a simple, dry material mixture, then becomes a flexible, semi-liquid material capable of forming into any shape or mould and which dries into the hard-as-rock material called concrete.
In many concrete structures and building, metal reinforcement, such as steel bars or rebar, is added to enhance strength and to reduce the cracking that can occur in solid concrete.
Concrete is composed of sand, cement and gravel or other fine and coarse aggregates. Water is added as an activator to the cement, which is the element solely responsible for binding the mix together to form a solid.
Concrete is also available in ready-made concrete mixes bags that combine cement, sand, and gravel so that all you need to do is add water.
These ready-made concretes are useful for small projects, like anchoring poles for the fence or building small pads. Therefore for large projects, you can either buy bags of cement and mix them with sand and coarse gravel yourself, using a wheelbarrow or other large container; or you can order premixed concrete delivered by a truck commonly called “ready-mix” concrete.
Types of Concrete
Modern Concrete
Modern concrete is the regular concrete produced by mixing Portland cement with water and aggregate and water-chemical mixtures.
Limecrete
Limecrete is also called lime concrete. It is a type of concrete in which instead of using cement in the mixture, lime used. Lime has certain benefits on the environment and health-wise as well. Environmentally, lime can absorbs carbon dioxide as it sets and allows natural products like wood, straw, and hemp to be used as fibres without fear of composting or deterioration since limecrete controls moisture.
High-Strength Concrete
High-strength concrete is different from normal-strength concrete it is based on the amount of force it can resist without breaking.
High-Performance Concrete (HPC)
High-performance concrete, in comparison to high-strength concrete, is not necessarily known for its compressive resistance strength. At the same time,high-performance concrete can include high compressive strength, other characteristics used to define “high performance” are the ease of placement without affecting stability, long-term mechanical properties, toughness, and longevity in various weather conditions among others.
Ultra-High-Performance Concrete
This type of concrete is in most cases pre-mixed in bags because of the numerous ingredients needed to make it. It includes Portland cement, quartz flour,silica fume, and fine silica sand. However, high-range water reducers, water, and other steel or organic fibres are used to increase the strength of the mixture.
Ultra-high-performance concrete is exceptionally durable because of the combination of fine powders. Different types of concrete typically need steel rebar or reinforcing to retain the intended structure. Still, UHPC is generally self-placing in addition to its incredible compressive strength of up to 29,000 psi.
Shotcrete
With shotcrete, it was initially a dry method for placing shotcrete was by using a compressed air nozzle to shoot dry mix and injecting water through a separate hose at the head of the nozzle. In contrast, the dry material is hurled toward the wall.
The wet-mix shotcrete was and is slightly different than the dry-mix shotcrete because dry-mix shotcrete involves the continuous feeding of a hopper through which dry mix would shoot through a nozzle and mix at the point of exit.
In Wet-mix shotcrete, however, consists of the use of pre-mixed concrete. The concrete has already been prepared and therefore, only involves one pump.
Self-Consolidating Concrete
Typically, concrete requires some vibration while being set to release the excess air that may be in the mixture. With self-consolidating concrete, however, it eliminates the need for the vibrations mainly through its malleable viscosity.
Being able to control the flowability and stability, as achieved by using high-range-water-reducing admixtures, allows concrete to be placed quicker.
Stamped Concrete
Stamped concrete is another common type of concrete that is very commonly used for parking lots, pavements, or other like high-traffic areas and has concrete has more of an architectural design application.
Once the concrete has been done, a kind of mould can be placed on top of, or stamped, onto the hardening concrete to create the appearance of natural stone. When the floor has been hardened, it will likely be sealed to increase the longevity of the dried mixture.
Properties of Concrete
· With proper materials and method, concrete can withstand and resist acids, water, fertilizers, fire and abrasion.
· Concrete can be finished to give a surface ranging from fine smooth to coarsely textured, and it can also be coloured with pigments or painted
· Concrete has excellent strength in compression but is fragile in tension.
· Most structural uses, such as foundations, slats, beams, RCC involve reinforced concrete, which will depend on concrete’s strength in compression and steel’s strength in tension.
· Because concrete is a structural material, strength is a desirable property of concrete
· Compressive strengths of concrete generally range from 2000 -5000 PSI but concrete can be reinforced to withstand over 10,000 psi for unique structures.
