Lightweight Reactive Powder Concrete Containing Expanded Perlite

This paper presents the test results of the lightweight concrete properties obtained by adding expanded perlite (EP) to an RPC mix in quantities from 30% to 60% by volume of the concrete mix. It has been shown that in these cases it is possible to obtain concrete containing 30% by volume with density of approximately 1900 kg/m³ and the compressive strength > 70 MPa, with a very low water absorption value (3.3%), equal to the water absorption value of RPC without lightweight aggregate (3.3%). However, with the increased quantity of perlite (from 45% to 60%), the concrete density reduction is not observed, as the expanded perlite demonstrates very low resistance to crushing. With the increased amount of perlite, the longer periods of mixing time for all the mix components are required to obtain the homogeneous and fluid concrete mix, what causes grounding down EP. Therefore, using larger quantities of this aggregate in RPC is not recommended. The lightweight RPC shows very good freeze-thaw resistance in the presence of de-icing salt (the scaling mass is lower than 0.1 kg/m²). The above is explained by the compact microstructure of this concrete and the RPC mix location in open pores on the perlite aggregate surface, which consequently affects the strengthening of the aggregate-matrix contact without an interfacial transition zone (ITZ) visible. It has been demonstrated that pozzolanic activity of expanded perlite is much lower than the activity of silica fume and quartz powder, and its impact on increasing the RPC strength is minimal.