Mechanical properties of lightweight aggregates

Lightweight aggregates (LWAs) were successfully produced both in a pilot-scale rotary kiln and in a laboratory chamber furnace. The mechanical properties of LWA were investigated in detail applying the European standard crushing resistance test (CR-test) as well as the single pellet compression test (spc-test). The spc-test showed that LWA pellets with porosities <82% behave similar to solid brittle spheres under compression when considering only the solid fraction of the pellet and the strength may be calculated according to σcrit = Fcrit/d2 where σcrit is a porosity independent strength, Fcrit is the measured load at failure and d the solid diameter (assuming zero porosity). It was reasoned that catastrophic failure was due to tensile stresses in the centre of the pellet and the strength was observed to increase exponentially with decreasing sample size. The relationship between the CR- and spc-test has been established facilitating “translation” of strength data between the two different test methods.