Concrete pumps can be easily configured to accommodate lightweight concrete. TXI is the nation's leading supplier of ES&C aggregates for pump-placed lightweight concrete applications. TXI's technical sales staff has 160 years combined experience in pump placed structural lightweight concrete applications. In addition, updated standards from the Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Institute (ESCSI) offer supporting information relating to the success of pumping lightweight concrete.
Independent testing of freeze/thaw conditions and practical field experience have confirmed that this is not the case. Many producers of lightweight concrete in the colder areas of the country have offered hard data from laboratories demonstrating lightweight concrete's success in cyclic freeze/thaw conditions.
Lightweight concrete is lightweight because of the inherently low density of the lightweight aggregate. Lightweight aggregates are a ceramic building material made from natural ES&C using the rotary kiln process. The selection and production of the raw material is put under strict control to ensure a uniform, high quality product that often exceeds accepted standards for compressive strength, gradation and bulk density.
Modern technology has, for many years, produced lightweight materials with similar or greater strengths than heavyweight materials. For instance, lightweight composite materials used in aircraft manufacturing today are becoming the materials of choice, replacing both aluminum and aluminum alloys. In studies involving 4,000 psi concretes using both heavy and lightweight concretes, the lightweight concrete often outperforms the heavyweight concrete. In some cases, less really is more.
The pre-cast, pre-stressed concrete industry has been using ES&C in different structural members with great success for years. In many cases, strengths above 3,500 psi are required in less than 20 hours in order to accomplish the production goals for many lightweight concrete projects.
