Development of foam concrete for fire-resistant walling elements

Overview

The need for fire safe buildings has emerged due to the increase in bushfires in many parts of the world. The walls are considered important as they act as barriers to fire propagation. This project will investigate the fire resistant performance of blocks made of foam concrete to construct internal and external wall panels for buildings against standard fire and bushfire resistance.

The performance will be summarised based on the elevated thermal properties of foam concrete at the material level and the fire resistance of foam concrete blocks at the component level.

Research activities

In this project you will:

• review foam concrete technology and physical/chemical/thermal and mechanical properties of foam concrete products
• cast foam concrete masonry blocks (i.e., 190 mm thick blocks) and conduct experimental studies on the physical and mechanical properties of the developed blocks.
• obtain thermal properties of the developed blocks – it includes thermal conductivity, mass loss and specific heat and compare with conventional/commercially available masonry blocks (Besser blocks).

Outcomes

The study will contribute towards developing new fire resistant masonry blocks made with foam concrete with less density (<1800 kg/m³).

Keywords

• bushfire
• fire resistance
• cement block

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.