Abstract

Light weight concrete has become more popular in recent years owing to the tremendous advantages it offers over the conventional concrete but at the same time strong enough to be used for the structural purpose. The most important characteristic of light weight concrete is its low thermal conductivity. This property improves with decreasing density. Structural lightweight aggregate concretes are considered as alternatives to concretes made with dense natural aggregate because of the relatively high strength to unit weight ratio that can be achieved. Other reasons for choosing lightweight concrete as a construction material is more attention is being paid to energy conservation and to the usage of waste materials to replace exhaustible natural sources. Increasing utilization of lightweight materials in civil structuring applications is making pumice stone a very popular raw material as a lightweight rock. Due to its having a good ability for making the different products based on its physical, chemical and mechanical properties, the pumice aggregate finds a large usage in civil industry as a construction material. Pumice is a natural sponge-like material of volcanic origin composed from molten lava rapidly cooling and trapping millions of tiny air bubbles. Pumice aggregate are abundant at the outskirts of volcanic mountains, particularly in Mediterranean area, Rocky Mountains in US, and most part of Turkey and Indonesia. Pumice is a natural aggregate of abundant resource around the world and it is environmentally friendly. However, pumice is far from being fully utilized in lightweight concrete at the time being. Concrete structures are generally designed to take advantage of its compressive strength

Description