Manufactured Sand is a sand produced from crushing of granite stones in required grading to be used for construction purposes as a replacement for river sand. Read More about Manufactured Sand.
The properties of Manufactured sand used for construction are:
Higher Strength of concrete:
The manufactured sand has required gradation of fines, physical properties such as shape, smooth surface textures and consistency which makes it the best sand suitable for construction. These physical properties of sand provides greater strength to the concrete by reducing segregation, bleeding, honeycombing, voids and capillary. Thus required grade of sand for the given purpose helps the concrete fill voids between coarse aggregates and makes concrete more compact and dense, thus increasing the strength of concrete.
Durability of concrete:
Since manufactured sand (M-Sand) is processed from selected quality of granite, it has the balanced physical and chemical properties for construction of concrete structures. This property of M-Sand helps the concrete structures withstand extreme environmental conditions and prevents the corrosion of reinforcement steel by reducing permeability, moisture ingress, freeze-thaw effect increasing the durability of concrete structures.
Workability of concrete:
Size, shape, texture play an important role in workability of concrete. With more surface area of sand, the demand for cement and water increases to bond the sand with coarse aggregates. The control over these physical properties of manufacturing sand make the concrete require less amount of water and provide higher workable concrete. The less use of water also helps in increasing the strength of concrete, less effort for mixing and placement of concrete, and thus increases productivity of construction activities at site.
Less Construction Defects:
Construction defects during placement and post-concreting such as segregation, bleeding, honeycombing, voids and capillarity in concrete gets reduced by the use of M-Sand as it has optimum initial and final setting time as well as excellent fineness.
Economy:
As discussed above, since usage of M-Sand has increased durability, higher strength, reduction in segregation, permeability, increased workability, decreased post-concrete defects, it proves to be economical as a construction material replacing river sand. It can also save transportation cost of river sand in many cases.
Eco-Friendly:
Usage of manufactured sand prevents dredging of river beds to get river sand which may lead to environmental disaster like ground water depletion, water scarcity, threat to the safety of bridges, dams etc. to make M-Sands more eco-friendly than river sand.
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