Advantages and Disadvantages of Foam Cement

foam cement is a concrete-like material that can be used as an alternative to traditional concrete. It has many benefits over normal concrete including less water usage, faster construction and lower cost. Foam concrete also has good thermal properties and sound insulation qualities.

Foam concrete is made up of a mixture of cement, sand or fly ash and a foaming agent that can be natural or synthetic. The foaming agent is usually a surfactant, which works by changing the surface tension of the gas and liquid interfaces. This creates the bubbles that are entrained in the concrete. foam cement can be mixed on site with a conventional ready mix concrete truck but this is inefficient, especially as the foam has to be kept warm during mixing and pumping.

Another disadvantage of this method is that the foam cannot be mixed with other concrete, it has to be used as a void filler. This is not ideal if the hole is going to be backfilled with heavy materials that need to be compacted. Using a mixer with a large volume of foam will result in the loss of foam, which is undesirable for applications where the foam needs to be stable.

Allied's unique surfactant formulations eliminate these problems, allowing the resulting foamed cement to be mixed with other concrete and masonry products. Allied's foam is compatible with all types of cement additives such as retarders, accelerators, colorants and hydraulic inorganics. It is also highly stable, allowing it to be used at low water/cement ratios and with various charge-containing superplasticizers.