Concrete and cement are necessary for construction including house renewal, walkway repair, and swimming pool construction. You can also buy them in the market or from concrete contractors, but do you really know what is difference between concrete and cement?
Although these two words are always being used as each other, they are not the same. Knowing the difference between concrete and cement helps you choose the right materials for your construction jobs.
What is concrete?
Concrete is the mixed paving foundmentals, that mainly consists of rocks, sands and other stones together. And the paste which is meanted to bind the aggregate is the cement.
The percentage of the cement in the concrete is about 15, which may change a little bit as the actual needs.
Therefore, they are not totally separate materials. The cement is an necessary material to create concrete.
In a narrow sense, concrete is an artificial material made of cement, granular materials and other materials in proper proportion and then hardened.
In civil engineering, the cement is widely used as bond material, which is made of sand and stone as aggregate, mixed with water and hardened in certain time.
Concrete is durable owing to the high content of rock. Therefore, it is widely used in swimming pool deck, high-rise buildings, subways, driveway and so on.
Nowadays, modern construction needing more and more concrete products, calls for high-efficient concrete producing and conveying machinery. Concrete pump is one of the most efficient concrete solution, including various sizes of concrete trailer pump, concrete mixer pump, electric concrete pump, diesel concrete pump, concrete boom pump as well as fixed concrete pump, mobile concrete pump, etc..
What is cement?
The cement is made of limestone, calcium, silicon, iron, aluminum and other mixture heated to around 2700℉. Therefore it is also called the product of cliners.
When the cement is mixed with water, there will be a chemical reaction, which reinforces and solidifies the cement.
Roughly, usually conbined with other ingredients, the cement is mini particle and power of crushed mineral.
Adding water, cement is the paste that wraps the aggregate surface and fills in the apertures as an adhesive materials.
By the way, asphalt is also an adhesive material.
It is widely used in projects like constructions, water conservation and mationa defense projects.
Aiming to mass high-quality cement supplying, there are also cement producing and deliverying machines in modern construction machinery industry field, such as cement pumper truck, cement pump trailer etc..
The difference between concrete and cement
Here are the clear comparison of these two things:
| Aspect | Concrete | Cement |
|---|---|---|
| Composition | Stone, rocks, cement, lime, asphalt, admixtures, water | Lime, Alumina, Silica, Magnesia, Iron oxide, Calcium Sulfate, Sulfur Trioxide, and Alkaline. |
| Chemistry reaction | A mix of rough and fine aggregate, for filling apreture of the aggreate. Both cement and asphalt can be used to bind those accumulations. Proper rank of coarse and also great aggregates are required to improve the strength. The water-cement ratio is just one of the essential variables for concrete. Concrete becomes more solid with time. | When cement is combined with water, a hydration reaction takes place as well as creates hardened cement paste. And when the two hydration reactions happen, the former reaction triggers the concrete to set. Then the second reaction causes the cement to set and also develops tobomite gel. Tobomite gel is the major bonding material that glued the aggregates entirely. |
| Durability | High durability | Performances not as well as concrete |
| Types | Lime concrete Reinforced concrete Dry concrete Wet concrete | OPC PPC Rapid hardening cemet Low heat cement High Alumina cement Air entertaining cement Expansive cement Hydrophobic cement |
| Usage | Improve strength of the buildings/ | Binds the aggregates in concrete altogether. |
| Hardness | Higher | Lower |
What is mortar?
Mortar is also a construction material that is commonly seen in the industry, but it is weaker than concrete.
Therefore the mortar can not be used independently, and it is not usually used as a preferred materials, mainly made of water and sand.
The mortar we usually use for construction is mixed on site instead of ready-mixed in advance.
The mortar used in structural construction is multi-purpose mortar, and its strength is expressed such as M5, M7.5, M10 mortar, etc.
Which mix should I use?
Generally, different construction projects and building parts need different strength grades of concrete. There is a certain range of choice. The general selection ranges are as follows:
C10 ~ c15: used for cushion, foundation, floor and structure with little force.
C20 ~ c25: for beams, slabs, columns, stairs, roof truss and other ordinary reinforced concrete structures;
C25 ~ c30: for long-span structures, structures requiring high durability, prefabricated components, etc.
C40 ~ C45: for prestressed concrete components, crane beams, special structures, 25 ~ 30 floors, etc;
C50 ~ C60: for high-rise buildings from 30 to more than 60 storeys;
C60 ~ C80: for high-rise buildings, using high-performance concrete;
C80 ~ C120: for using super high strength concrete in high-rise building.
This is only the common of the current concrete market in some areas, and in the future there may be more concrete of up to C130 used in projects.
Common structural beam-slab concrete label is generally C25, C20. C30 can be used as the concrete mark of beam-slab, such as basement floor, roof, roof garden floor, etc.
But in the construction the concrete mixture ratio is also often involved, like C20 and C25 concrete mixture ratio (weight ratio):
cement: sand: gravel: water = 1:1.83:4.09:0.50, and C25 concrete mixture ratio (weight ratio) : cement: sand: gravel: water = 1:1.48:3.63:0.44;.
Of course, this is only a theoretical data. In the actual construction process, mortar, concrete mix will vary with the construction conditions, material conditions.
If you are going to start concrete business, we recommend you use a concrete mixer with pump to improve the concrete productivety.
If you are using concrete for construction project, then a high-quality concrete pump is also necessary.
Contact us to know more about the concrete pumps to get your business promoted.
