Attainment of structural lightweight concrete by adding expanded vermiculite addition

Concrete's consumption increases all over the world with each passing day, and that has led to the development of new materials such as structural lightweight concrete SLC. The advantages of using this material is that since it is light, there is not so much need to spend a lot of income with structure foundations, transport and even lifting of precast concrete units. To obtain SLC the use of some light aggregate is needed, like exfoliated vermiculite. It is known that if concrete's self-weight is reduced, its mechanic resistance is also reduced. The present work was to analyze the influence of the addition of vermiculite in different amounts on a high performance concrete mix, observing if with the addition it would be possible to obtain high performance lightweight concrete. The experimental analysis included the study of compressive strength, diametric compression traction, efficiency factor and specific mass in the hardened state. Two specimens were molded and tested at ages of 7 and 28 days.