Compare brick and aerated concrete

Brick and aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are two types of pop­u­lar small-piece mate­ri­als that are used in the con­struc­tion of load-bear­ing, self-sup­port­ing walls and par­ti­tions of build­ings. Our con­struc­tion experts exam­ined the prop­er­ties and fea­tures of these mate­ri­als, made a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of their advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages, so that you can make an informed choice of one or anoth­er mate­r­i­al.

Brick

Brick can be divid­ed into two main types — ceram­ic and sil­i­cate.

Ceramic brick and stone

Ceram­ic bricks are made by mold­ing prod­ucts from a plas­tic clay mass, which are then fired in kilns, which gives them the strength of stone. Brick can be ordi­nary and effec­tive. An ordi­nary brick is full-bod­ied, but in an effi­cient one, round or rec­tan­gu­lar voids are formed dur­ing the pro­duc­tion process. The use of effec­tive prod­ucts makes it pos­si­ble to improve the heat-shield­ing qual­i­ties of the walls being built, while reduc­ing their thick­ness in com­par­i­son with walls made of sol­id bricks.

In addi­tion to ceram­ic bricks, ceram­ic stone is also used in con­struc­tion today. The dif­fer­ence between the stone is its large size and the oblig­a­tory pres­ence of voids. Inter­nal and exter­nal walls, par­ti­tions, columns, as well as foun­da­tions are built from ceram­ic stone and brick. The stan­dard col­or of prod­ucts is red, but with the help of col­or­ing pig­ments, mate­ri­als are giv­en var­i­ous shades of the stan­dard col­or.

Since the out­er walls of mod­ern brick build­ings are now made three-lay­ered — with an inner lay­er that per­forms a load-bear­ing func­tion, a lay­er of insu­la­tion and an out­er, fac­ing lay­er — a spe­cial fac­ing or fac­ing brick and stone is pro­duced for cladding. The side of the fac­ing prod­ucts, which will be out­side the facade of the build­ing, is treat­ed in var­i­ous ways to give dec­o­ra­tive prop­er­ties. In addi­tion to rec­tan­gu­lar fac­ing bricks, some man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duce many types of fig­ured prod­ucts to cre­ate facades with com­plex archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments.

Tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics of ceram­ic prod­ucts:

1. in size, a brick can be of three types — ordi­nary 250x120x65 mm, thick­ened 250x120x80 mm and mod­u­lar 288x138x63mm;

2. stone — ordi­nary 250x120x138 mm, enlarged 250x250x138 mm, mod­u­lar 288x138x138 mm. In addi­tion, there is a stone with hor­i­zon­tal voids, the dimen­sions of which are 250x150x120 (250) mm;

3. fac­ing brick — ordi­nary 250x120x65 mm, thick­ened 250x120x88 mm, mod­u­lar 288x138x63 mm;

4. fac­ing stone — ordi­nary 250x120x138 mm, enlarged 250x250x138 mm, mod­u­lar 288x138x138 mm.

5. strength grade, that is, the abil­i­ty of the prod­uct to with­stand a ver­ti­cal com­pres­sive load — for ordi­nary prod­ucts M75-M300, for front prod­ucts M75-M150;

6. brand for frost resis­tance, that is, the abil­i­ty to with­stand a cer­tain num­ber of cycles of alter­nate freez­ing-thaw­ing: F 15.25.35.75;

7. aver­age den­si­ty: for effec­tive brick and stone — 1400–1450 kg / m3, for ordi­nary — 1600 kg / m3;

8. water absorp­tion of facial prod­ucts — no more than 14%.

silicate brick

They are made from a raw mass, which includes sand, lime, water, pig­ments, by press­ing in molds and sub­se­quent treat­ment with hot steam in an auto­clave. Accord­ing to the vari­eties of form, it is sim­i­lar to ceram­ic, it is divid­ed into ordi­nary and facial, it can be full-bod­ied and hol­low. The stan­dard col­or of sil­i­cate prod­ucts is white, but face bricks are usu­al­ly paint­ed in dif­fer­ent col­ors with the addi­tion of pig­ments.

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions:

1. in size: sin­gle 250x120x65 mm, mod­u­lar (nec­es­sar­i­ly hol­low) 250x120x88 mm, mod­u­lar stone 250x120x138 mm;

2. strength grade — M75 — M300;

3. frost resis­tance — F15, 25, 35, 50;

4. aver­age den­si­ty — 1800–1850 kg / m3;

5. water absorp­tion — no more than 14% for facial prod­ucts.

aerated concrete

Aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are pro­duced under indus­tri­al con­di­tions from a mix­ture of cement, quartz sand, quick­lime and water, to which a cer­tain amount of alu­minum pow­der is added. After adding this reagent to the solu­tion, the mix­ture is imme­di­ate­ly trans­ferred to spe­cial con­tain­ers, where, as a result of a chem­i­cal reac­tion, swelling and an increase in the vol­ume of the raw mass occur due to the for­ma­tion of hydro­gen gas, which cre­ates small pores even­ly dis­trib­uted through­out the prod­uct. After the con­crete mass reach­es a cer­tain stage of inter­me­di­ate hard­en­ing, it is cut on a spe­cial machine using wire strings into blocks of stan­dard size. The final stage in the man­u­fac­ture of aer­at­ed con­crete blocks is auto­clav­ing with high-pres­sure steam, where the prod­ucts gain the estab­lished strength. Fin­ished prod­ucts are then processed on milling equip­ment — if nec­es­sary, grooves and ridges are cut at the ends, and the sur­faces are fin­ished.

It should be not­ed that pre­fab­ri­cat­ed auto­claved aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are often con­fused with foam con­crete blocks. Foam con­crete blocks can be pro­duced both in the con­di­tions of the pro­duc­tion work­shop and direct­ly on the con­struc­tion site. The ini­tial raw mix for the pro­duc­tion of foam con­crete blocks con­sists of cement, sand, water and foam, pre­pared sep­a­rate­ly using a spe­cial foam­ing agent. The mix­ture is placed in spe­cial forms, where dur­ing hard­en­ing the foam bub­bles are dis­trib­uted even­ly through­out the vol­ume of the solu­tion, result­ing in foam con­crete. At the same time, the process of gain­ing the nec­es­sary strength pro­ceeds at nat­ur­al tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty.

Aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are man­u­fac­tured using high-tech equip­ment in the fac­to­ry, which makes it pos­si­ble to obtain prod­ucts of high­er qual­i­ty than foam con­crete ones. For exam­ple, the devi­a­tion from stan­dard geo­met­ric dimen­sions for aer­at­ed con­crete blocks should be 1–3 mm, while for foam con­crete blocks this val­ue can be an order of mag­ni­tude high­er. Char­ac­ter­is­tics such as the coef­fi­cient of ther­mal con­duc­tiv­i­ty, strength at a cer­tain den­si­ty for aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are also bet­ter than for foam con­crete blocks.

Aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are divid­ed into wall par­ti­tions in size and into heat-insu­lat­ing, heat-insu­lat­ing-struc­tur­al and struc­tur­al in terms of den­si­ty and strength. In addi­tion, oth­er types of blocks are pro­duced: with han­dles for grip­ping, tongue-and-groove ends for cre­at­ing tight locks dur­ing mason­ry, U‑shaped — for arrang­ing rein­forced lin­tels in mason­ry.

Specifications

Aer­at­ed con­crete blocks are man­u­fac­tured in accor­dance with GOST 31360–2007, accord­ing to which prod­ucts must com­ply with the fol­low­ing para­me­ters and tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics:

1. thick­ness of wall blocks — from 200 to 500 mm, thick­ness of par­ti­tion walls — 100–150 mm, length — 600 and 625 mm, height 200, 250, 300 mm;

2. heat-insu­lat­ing blocks of grades D300-D500 have a den­si­ty of 300–500 kg/m3;

3. strength class: D300 — B1 (10–15 kg/cm2), D400 — B2.5 (32 kg/cm2), D500 — B3.5 (46 kg/cm2), D600 — B4 (55 kg/cm2), D700 — B5 (65 kg/cm2), D800 — B7.5 (98 kg/cm2), D900 — B10 (130 kg/cm2), D1000 — B12.5 (164 kg/cm2), D1100 — B15 (196 kg /cm2), D1200 — B20 (262 kg/cm2;

4. Frost resis­tance — F25-F50;

5. Water absorp­tion — more than 50%.

Table of advantages and disadvantages

The main differences between materials

The main dif­fer­ences between the mate­ri­als are as fol­lows:

1. are made from dif­fer­ent raw mate­ri­als;

2. dif­fer in size;

3. mason­ry is made using dif­fer­ent com­po­si­tions — brick using a cement-sand mor­tar, from blocks — using an adhe­sive com­po­si­tion;

4. brick is much heav­ier than blocks;

5. brick is much stronger;

6. blocks are much more hygro­scop­ic than bricks;

7. brick has a more aes­thet­ic appear­ance, suit­able for archi­tec­tur­al design of facades;

8. brick is much more expen­sive than aer­at­ed con­crete blocks.

What is the similarity of materials

The sim­i­lar­i­ty of mate­ri­als is as fol­lows:

both mate­ri­als are small pieces, with which you can lay the walls;

brick and blocks are suit­able for the con­struc­tion of the same struc­tures;

both mate­ri­als are envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly;

both mate­ri­als are fire­proof;

and brick and blocks pro­vide good sound insu­la­tion.

Con­clu­sions: An unam­bigu­ous con­clu­sion about what is bet­ter — brick or aer­at­ed con­crete blocks can­not be made. Both mate­ri­als have their advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages and, accord­ing­ly, the right to use. If finan­cial pos­si­bil­i­ties allow, then, of course, it is bet­ter to build a house entire­ly of bricks. In the bud­get case, it is quite pos­si­ble to use aer­at­ed con­crete blocks. A good option is when both mate­ri­als are used, for exam­ple, blocks are used for lay­ing inter­nal walls, and the lin­ing is made of bricks.