PROPERTIES OF FRESH AND HARDENED MORTARS WITH AIR-ENTRAINING AGENT

Abstract

The influence of the air-entraining agent (AEA) on a density, the volume of entrained air of mortar mix and compressive strength of hardened mortar was studied in this article. Results show that the addition of AEA results in the reduction of water to cement ratio to provide the targeted flow and the density that depends on the volume of entrained air. The addition of AEA causes the decrease of the density of mortar (C:S=1:2) by 8,2% and the increase of the compressive strength by 13,9% after 28 days of hardening compared to the mortar (C:S=1:2) without AEA. The further increase of a sand content in a mortar (C:S=1:3) results in slight decrease of a density of fresh mortar and compressive strength. If C:S ratio is 1:4 the increase of the density and the compressive strength decrease is observed in comparison with the mortar with C:S=1:3. The obtained results show that properties of mortar incorporating AEA depend on its mix proportion.