We compare the brands of cement M‑400 and M‑500

Cement — of course, is one of the main par­tic­i­pants in the con­struc­tion process, since it is used to cre­ate many dif­fer­ent struc­tures (and not only ground ones). This mate­r­i­al (with­out undue mod­esty) is unique, because its ana­logue has not yet been dis­cov­ered or cre­at­ed in the world. Even home repairs are some­times not com­plete with­out a cement mix­ture. In order for the cho­sen prod­uct to real­ly serve you well, you should choose it cor­rect­ly, and for non-pro­fes­sion­als it is some­times oh so dif­fi­cult to do this. Our experts will answer in detail the ques­tion of what is the dif­fer­ence between M400 and M600 — one of the most durable among the exist­ing types of cement.

The composition and features of the cement mixture

Cement — one of the most com­mon and pop­u­lar build­ing mate­ri­als, is clink­er crushed to a pow­der state, sup­ple­ment­ed with mod­i­fied fillers. The prod­uct is used in the con­struc­tion of struc­tures for var­i­ous pur­pos­es, as well as in the cre­ation of high-strength prod­ucts.

Exter­nal­ly, the cement is pre­sent­ed in the form of a pow­dery gray mass, which, when com­bined with water, trans­forms into a thick syn­thet­ic mix­ture, is plas­tic, and when solid­i­fied, has high strength. Mod­ern indus­try does not stand still, con­stant­ly improv­ing the mate­r­i­al, refin­ing and mod­i­fy­ing its struc­ture.

There are sev­er­al types of cement:

1. slag;

2. Poz­zolan­ic;

3. White;

4. Hydropho­bic;

5. Mag­ne­sian;

6. Port­land cement, etc.

Despite such species diver­si­ty, all types of cement have one invari­able char­ac­ter­is­tic — the brand. Con­ven­tion­al­ly, it is denot­ed by the let­ter “M” and the num­ber imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing it. The lat­ter indi­cates the max­i­mum load (expressed in kilo­grams) that a cer­tain vol­ume of cement can with­stand with­out the appear­ance of defor­ma­tion marks on it. In fact, we are talk­ing about the strength of the mate­r­i­al dur­ing its com­pres­sion.

Characteristics of the M400 and M50 brands

M400 brand cement is deserved­ly one of the most demand­ed. Dif­fers in high rates of dura­bil­i­ty and excel­lent anti­cor­ro­sive prop­er­ties. The prod­uct is active­ly used both in indus­try and in every­day life as a basis for con­crete mor­tar. The use of the M400 is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant in the fol­low­ing indus­tries:

1. Agri­cul­ture;

2. Indus­try;

3. Con­struc­tion of ground, under­ground and under­wa­ter struc­tures made of rein­forced con­crete, as well as rein­forced con­crete prod­ucts;

4. When build­ing a foun­da­tion, build­ing beams.

5. The con­sid­ered type of cement has a num­ber of unde­ni­able advan­tages:

6. Unde­mand­ing to hard­en­ing and work sched­ule;

7. Does not give cracks with a slight devi­a­tion from the con­struc­tion tech­nol­o­gy;

8. Has high frost resis­tance;

9. Has an afford­able price.

Among the short­com­ings of the mate­r­i­al, per­haps, only insuf­fi­cient strength can be not­ed, so the M400 is nev­er used in the con­struc­tion of high-rise build­ings. M400 is best suit­ed for cre­at­ing con­crete slabs and erect­ing rein­forced con­crete struc­tures.

M500 — cement, char­ac­ter­ized by a fast set­ting speed, and capa­ble of with­stand­ing a load of up to 500 kg / cm with­out defor­ma­tion. M500 brand cement is rep­re­sent­ed by two vari­eties:

1. M500 D0 is a pure cement mix­ture that does not con­tain any addi­tives. It has found wide appli­ca­tion in indus­tri­al con­struc­tion due to its unique char­ac­ter­is­tics: when mixed with con­crete, it improves its water and frost resis­tance, as well as strength. The design is incred­i­bly sta­ble, able to with­stand sig­nif­i­cant loads.

2. M500 D20 — unlike the pre­vi­ous ver­sion, it con­tains 1/5 addi­tives, which pro­vide, in addi­tion to strength and resis­tance to mois­ture / frost, excel­lent anti-cor­ro­sion prop­er­ties.

Due to its abil­i­ty to quick­ly hard­en, M500 cement is active­ly used in emer­gency and repair work. So, in what indus­tries is the M500 often used? This build­ing mate­r­i­al is indis­pens­able in the con­struc­tion of the foun­da­tion, the cre­ation of paving slabs, roof tiles, etc.

ON A NOTE. Experts do not rec­om­mend the use of the M500 for prod­ucts that are in an aggres­sive envi­ron­ment. It is bet­ter to pre­fer sul­fate-resis­tant cement to it.

Main differences

Of course, both brands under con­sid­er­a­tion are val­ued in con­struc­tion for their high strength and resis­tance to cor­ro­sion, but this does not make them iden­ti­cal. Con­sid­er the main dif­fer­ences between the two prod­ucts:

How to choose the right product?

So, sum­ming up, one can say very flat­ter­ing things about both brands of cement: both the one and the oth­er prod­uct are durable, hard­en quite quick­ly. But the amount of addi­tives and the min­er­alog­i­cal com­po­si­tion are far from iden­ti­cal.

To suc­cess­ful­ly choose the best option, first of all, you should con­sid­er the pur­pose for which the prod­uct is pur­chased. If this is repair and con­struc­tion work or there is a need to pre­pare a mor­tar, the M500 D20 is ide­al. If it is planned to erect a rein­forced con­crete struc­ture, the M400 is indis­pens­able.

At the time of pur­chase, be sure to pay atten­tion to the pack­ag­ing:

1. The date of man­u­fac­ture should not exceed a peri­od of 6 months at the time of pur­chase, since this fig­ure is the max­i­mum indi­ca­tor of the “via­bil­i­ty” of the prod­uct;

2. Type of mark­ing (in par­tic­u­lar, the pres­ence of addi­tives);

3. Pack­ag­ing integri­ty.

4. In addi­tion to weight, the pack­ag­ing should con­tain clear infor­ma­tion about who the cement man­u­fac­tur­er is, the coun­try of man­u­fac­ture (includ­ing the city).

ON A NOTE. In no case do not exper­i­ment with sev­er­al cement grades at the same time: mix­ing M400 and M500 will only lead to a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the char­ac­ter­is­tics of both prod­ucts.