Honeycomb concrete Development history and application areas

The Origin of Foam Concrete
The earliest form of foam concrete can be traced back to approximately 5,000 years ago, when the ancient Egyptians used natural substances to create gas when mixed, resulting in porous materials. Over 2,000 years ago, the ancient Romans mixed lime, sand, and gravel to create the earliest form of concrete. Shortly thereafter, they discovered that adding animal blood to this primitive concrete and mixing it produced durable bubbles, rendering the concrete a stable yet porous material. Additionally, they found that adding horsehair to this porous concrete addressed its shrinkage cracking, much like how synthetic fibers are used in foam concrete today. It can be said that the porous material created by the ancient Romans is the closest precursor to modern foam concrete technology. To this day, animal blood hydrolysate foaming agents remain one type of animal protein foaming agent used in foam concrete.

The true modern industrial foam concrete began its earliest explorations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The characteristic of earlier primitive foam concrete was the lack of technical means to control the amount of air introduced into the concrete, i.e., the inability to control material density. The extremely cold winters in Sweden prompted them to seek efficient insulation materials urgently. Building on the primitive foam concrete technology of their predecessors, they conducted foundational research on the properties of foam concrete. In 1923, Europeans first proposed a method of producing porous concrete by mixing pre-formed bubbles with cement mortar, marking the world’s first true modern foam concrete.
II. The Development History of Foam Concrete
In the early 20th century, Nordic countries and Russia actively pursued the technological development of foam concrete. From then on, foam concrete began to develop rapidly. The two decades from the early 1930s to the early 1950s marked the period when the industrialized technical system for foam concrete was established. During this period, the outbreak of World War II led to a shortage of aluminum powder, which was used in the production of aerated concrete. As a result, European countries turned to using foam as a substitute for aluminum powder, replacing aerated concrete with foam concrete. This stimulated research, development, and production of foam concrete before, during, and after the war, creating its first peak of development. Its primary application was in building insulation.

　　During this period, the Soviet Union achieved the most significant technological advancements. It can be said that the Soviet Union played a pivotal role in the maturation and industrialization of foam concrete technology. From the start of research and development in 1926 to the commencement of industrial production in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1930, the Soviet Union achieved this in just four years. The foam concrete blocks, wall panels, decorative panels, roof panels, and floor panels produced by these enterprises began to be widely applied in industrial and residential buildings. From 1946 to 1958, the Soviet Union established a series of national standards, including ‘Foam Concrete Roof Panels’ 1781-49 and ‘Reinforced Foam Concrete Large Panels for Factory Roofs’ 7741-55, becoming the first country in the world to establish a comprehensive standard system for foam concrete products, predating China by over 50 years.

It can be said that the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the foam concrete technology system. The comprehensive set of methods they established for determining foam concrete raw material properties and testing products, the steam curing technical specifications for foam concrete, and testing instruments such as the foam settlement distance and bleeding rate detector (developed by the Central Institute of Industrial Building Science of the Soviet Union) are still widely used worldwide today. Most of the foaming agents currently in use in China were also invented by the Soviet Union. For example, A.T. Baranov and L.M. Ropferid invented the petroleum sulfonic acid aluminum foaming agent, which was first used in industrial applications at the Retkarl Foam Concrete Plant and the Dnieper Petrovo Foam Concrete Plant in 1950, L.M. Ropferid developed the hydrolyzed blood glue foaming agent, which began industrial application in the early 1950s; M. H. Getzler and B. H. Kaufman developed rosin soap foaming agents in the 1940s, which remain the most widely used foaming agents in the world today; and in 1940, the Central Institute of Industrial Construction Sciences of the former Soviet Union developed plant saponin foaming agents using plant roots and stems. Today, the foundational technology of foam concrete largely originates from the former Soviet Union.
　　Since the 1950s, foam concrete technology has spread worldwide from its European origin through two channels. One channel involved the former Soviet Union spreading its technology to China and Eastern European countries, such as Poland, while the other channel involved Western European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the Netherlands, spreading it to North America and Asian countries like South Korea and Japan. This phase marked the period of global dissemination and development of foam concrete technology. During this period, the application of foam concrete was primarily focused on building insulation products.
In 1979, Yamads and others in the United States successfully applied foam concrete in oilfield cementing for the first time, enabling foam concrete to expand beyond its single application in insulation and begin developing in multiple fields. Subsequently, Japan successfully applied it in geotechnical engineering, particularly in backfilling. South Korea and Japan applied it in underfloor heating insulation layers. Since the new century, research into new applications of foam concrete in fields such as sound absorption and insulation, energy and wave absorption, and fire-resistant materials has been active, and standardized applications have gradually been established.
It can be said that the 30 years from 1979 to the present have been a period of rapid improvement in foam concrete technology and expansion of its application areas. Currently, its application areas have expanded to over 20 fields, extending from civilian use to military, aerospace, and industrial applications in high-end sectors, paving the way for its future development. The three most developed regions for foam concrete are Europe, North America, and East Asia (comprising China, Japan, and South Korea), as well as Southeast Asia. In other regions, foam concrete also has some applications. Overall, foam concrete has been widely adopted worldwide.

Company Profile

Cabr-Concrete is the global leader in Low-Density Cellular Concrete (LDCC), Celluar Light Concrete (CLC), and advanced engineered foam solutions. Known globally for its commitment to research, innovation, and applied expertise, we have been providing engineered foam solutions since the early 2012’s.

We can supply Calcium formate over the world. The company has a professional technical department and quality supervision department, a well-equipped laboratory, and equipped with advanced testing equipment and after-sales customer service center.Send us an email or click on the needed products to send an inquiry.

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