[Greenbuilding] fireproof light deck

[RT]

On Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:46:17 -0400, Gennaro Brooks-Church  
<info at ecobrooklyn.com> wrote:

> Can anyone think of a material I could mix into concrete that would
> then go away leaving a lighter concrete paver?

See "Air-entraining Agents (or Admixtures)"

As the name implies, they create tiny air bubbles in the concrete.
Those air bubbles impart a degree of resistance to frost damage.

However, the reduction in density would not likely be of the magnitude  
that you're looking for.

For that, you'd need to look at using light-weight aggregates, probably  
none of which are local to the NYC area so would result in a penalty in  
Greenie Points.

Hyper-tuffa (ie made with peat moss) might be interesting but there are  
some who would question the Green-ness of the peat harvesting industry.

Another option would be to optimise the geometry of the "pavers" is the  
fashion of waffle slabs, hollow-core slabs and T-slabs (ie get rid of the  
useless dead weight in the cross section).

Or you might get in touch with Durisol (the folks who make ICFs) and see  
if they'd be interested in making pavers for you out of their mineralised  
wood fibre material ?  Maybe you (or they) do something like a parging on  
the top face to make a smoother, less porous wear surface.


-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
< A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a >
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