Study on polyurethane foamed concrete for use in structural applications

Recently, foamed concrete is being widely used in civil construction and building, because of its high fluidity and settlement, low self-weight and low thermal conductivity. However, it has some major setbacks such as low strength and increased shrinkage at later ages. The strength gain of concrete depends upon several variables; one of these is the curing conditions. This work aims to study the potential production of foamed concrete as a sustainable structural material by varying the curing methods. For this purpose, sample cubes, cylinders and prisms were prepared to find the compressive strength, modulus of elasticity and drying shrinkage at different ages. Samples of the polyurethane foamed concrete cured under four different curing regimes (water, moisture, sealing by membrane-forming curing compound and air curing). At the end of the study, polyurethane foamed concrete used for this study has shown the potential for use in structural applications. Also, the results show that the samples cured by moisture have the highest compressive strength at all ages.