The Effect of Gradation and Grain-Size Properties of Fine Aggregate on the Building Mortars

This work is about the effect of fine aggregate properties on the physicomechanical characteristics of hardened mortars. The results indicated that the increase in grain-size of fine aggregate increases the bulk density of hardened mortars. The strength of mortars including limestone fine aggregate is higher than that of the silica-sand. Regardless of the aggregate origin, the strength of the mortars with well-graded fine aggregate for all grain-size is greater than of with uniform fine aggregate. This indicates that grading of fine aggregate increases the strength, while uniformity decreases it. The strength of mortars with well-graded fine aggregate increases as the grain-size increases. Regardless of the aggregate origin, the strength of mortars with uniform fine aggregate increases with increasing grain-size until the grain-size range of 425-1000 µm, but after this range it decreases with increasing grain-size. The thermal conductivity increases with the increase in the grain-size. Notedly, the relationship between thermal conductivity and maximum grain-size of well-graded fine aggregate has a very strong positive correlation. Further, the thermal conductivity value for mortars formed with uniform fine limestone aggregate is minimum at the grain-size range of 425-1000 µm, while it has greatest values close together from this grain-size range.