Autoclaved aerated concrete

Autoclaved aerated concrete (also called autoclaved cellular concrete (ACC) or simply autoclaved concrete) is a lightweight, prefabricated concrete building material. Developed initially in the mid-1920s, it is an alternative to traditional concrete blocks and clay bricks. AAC products are manufactured offsite, as opposed to cellular concrete which is typically mixed and placed onsite.
AAC is composed of a combination of quartz sand, gypsum, lime, portland cement, water, and aluminium powder. After the aerated mixture is partially cured in a mould, the material is further cured under heat and pressure in an autoclave. AAC can be made into blocks, wall panels, floor, and roof panels, cladding (façade) panels, and lintels.
AAC materials can be cut using standard power tools with carbon steel cutters but special training may be required.AAC products may be used in various construction projects similarly to cellular concrete. However, for any exterior use, they require an applied finish to guard against weathering, such as a polymer-modified stucco or plaster compound, or a covering of siding materials such as natural or manufactured stone, veneer brick, metal, or vinyl siding.
AAC was first created in the mid-1920s by the Swedish architect and inventor Dr. Johan Axel Eriksson (1888–1961), along with Professor Henrik Kreüger at the Royal Institute of Technology. The process was patented in 1924. In 1929, production started in Sweden in the city of Yxhult. "Yxhults Ånghärdade Gasbetong" later became the first registered building materials brand in the world: Ytong. Another brand, "Siporex", was established in Sweden in 1939. Although, following WWII, the need for the product decreased drastically. Production was reduced to a minimum level with no new plants built since the 1990s. Josef Hebel of Memmingen established another cellular concrete brand, Hebel, which opened their first plant in Germany in 1943.
Ytong AAC was originally produced in Sweden using alum shale, which contained combustible carbon beneficial to the production process. However, these deposits were found to contain natural uranium that decays over time to radon gas, which then accumulates in structures where the AAC was used. This problem was addressed in 1972 by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, and by 1975, Ytong abandoned alum shale in favor of a formulation made from quartz sand, calcined gypsum, lime (mineral), cement, water, and aluminum powder. These ingredients are currently in use by most major brands.
In 1978, Siporex Sweden opened the Siporex Factory in Saudi Arabia, establishing the Lightweight Construction Company (LCC), supplying Gulf Cooperation Council countries with aerated blocks and panels. Since 1980, there has been a worldwide increase in the use of AAC materials. New production plants are being built in Australia, Bahrain, China, Eastern Europe, India, and the United States. AAC is increasingly used worldwide by developers.. Currently LCC has three branches in Saudi Arabia.
Today, the production of AAC is concentrated in Europe and Asia with some facilities located in the Americas. Egypt has the sole manufacturing plant in Africa. Although the European AAC market has seen a reduction in growth, Asia is experiencing a rapid expansion in the industry, driven by an escalating need for residential and commercial spaces. Currently, China has the largest Aircrete market globally, with several hundred manufacturing plants. The most significant AAC production and consumption occur in China, Central Asia, India, and the Middle East, reflecting the dynamic growth and demand in these regions.
Like other masonry materials, AAC is sold under many different brand names. Ytong and Hebel are brands of the international operating company Xella, headquartered in Duisburg. Other brand names in Europe include H+H Celcon (Denmark) and Solbet (Poland).
AAC is used for both exterior and interior construction.
AAC is suitable for high-rise constructions and settlements which the temperature vary frequently. Due to its lower density, high-rise buildings constructed using AAC require less steel and concrete for structural members. The mortar needed for laying AAC blocks is reduced due to the lower number of joints. Similarly, less material is required for rendering because AAC can be shaped precisely before installation. Even though regular cement mortar can be used, most buildings that use AAC materials use thin bed mortar in thicknesses around 3.2 millimetres (1⁄8 in), depending on the national building codes.
AAC is made with aggregate usually smaller than sand. Binding agents include quartz sand, lime, calcined gypsum, or cement and water. Aluminum powder constitutes 0.05–0.08% by volume. Some countries (such as India and China) use fly ash from coal-fired power plants (50-65% silica) as the aggregate.
When AAC is mixed and cast in forms, aluminum powder reacts with calcium hydroxide and water to form hydrogen. The hydrogen gas foams, doubling the volume of the raw mix and creating gas bubbles up to 3 millimetres (1⁄8 in) in diameter—it has been described as having bubbles inside like "a chocolate Aero bar". At the end of the foaming process, the hydrogen escapes into the atmosphere and is replaced by air, leaving a product as light as 20% of the weight of conventional concrete.
When the forms are removed from the material, it is solid but still soft. It is then cut into either blocks or panels, if necessary, and placed in an autoclave chamber for 12 hours. During this steam pressure hardening process, when the temperature reaches 190 °C (374 °F) and the pressure reaches 800 to 1,200 kPa (8.0 to 12.0 bar; 120 to 170 psi), quartz sand reacts with calcium hydroxide to form calcium silicate hydrate, which gives AAC its high strength and other unique properties. Because of the relatively low temperature used, AAC blocks are not considered to be a fired brick but a lightweight concrete masonry unit. After the autoclaving process, the material is stored and shipped to construction sites for use. Depending on its density, up to 80% of the volume of an AAC block is air. AAC's low density also accounts for its low structural compression strength. It can carry loads of up to 8,000 kPa (1,200 psi), approximately 50% of the compressive strength of regular concrete.
Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) is a reinforced version of autoclaved aerated concrete, commonly used in roofing and wall construction. The first structural reinforced roof and floor panels were manufactured in Sweden. Soon after, the first autoclaved aerated concrete block plant started there in 1929. However, Belgian and German technologies became market leaders for RAAC elements after the Second World War. In Europe, it gained popularity in the mid-1950s as a cheaper and more lightweight alternative to conventional reinforced concrete, with documented widespread use in a number of European countries as well as Japan and former territories of the British Empire.
RAAC was used in roof, floor and wall construction due to its lighter weight and lower cost compared to traditional concrete, and fire resistance properties; it does not require plastering to achieve fire resistance and fire does not cause spalls. RAAC was used in construction in Europe, in buildings constructed after the mid-1950s. RAAC elements have also been used in Japan as walling units, owing to their good behavior in seismic conditions.
RAAC has been shown to have limited structural reinforcement bar (rebar) integrity in 40 to 50 year-old RAAC roof panels, which began to be observed in the 1990s. The material is liable to fail without visible deterioration or warning. This is often caused by RAAC's high susceptibility to water infiltration due to its porous nature, which causes corrosion of internal reinforcements in ways that are hard to detect. This places increased tensile stress on the bond between the reinforcement and concrete, lowering the material's service life. Detailed risk analyses are required on a structure-by-structure basis to identify areas in need of maintenance and lower the chance of catastrophic failure.
Professional engineering concern about the structural performance of RAAC was first publicly raised in the United Kingdom in 1995 following inspections of cracked units in British school roofs, and was subsequently reinforced in 2022 when the Government Property Agency declared the material to be life-expired, and in 2023 when, following the partial or total closure of 174 schools at risk of a roofing collapse, other buildings were found to have issues with their RAAC construction, with some of these only being discovered to have been made from RAAC during the crisis. During the 2023 crisis, it was observed that it was likely for RAAC in other countries to exhibit problems similar to those found in the United Kingdom.
On June 21, 2024, the Ontario Science Centre, a major museum in Toronto, Canada, permanently closed its original site due to severely deteriorated roof panels from its 1969 opening. Despite the proposed repair options, the provincial government of Ontario, the center's ultimate owner, had already announced plans to relocate the center and therefore requested immediate closure of the facility instead of funding repairs. Approximately 400 other public buildings in Ontario are understood to contain the material and are under review, but no other closures were anticipated at the time of the Science Centre closure.
The high resource efficiency of autoclaved aerated concrete contributes to a lower environmental impact than conventional concrete, from raw material processing to the disposal of aerated concrete waste. Due to continuous improvements in efficiency, the production of aerated concrete blocks requires relatively little raw materials per m of product and is five times less than the production of other building materials. There is little loss of raw materials in the production process, and all production waste is returned to the production cycle. Production of aerated concrete requires less energy than for all other masonry products, thereby reducing the use of fossil fuels and associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The curing process also saves energy, as the steam curing takes place at relatively low temperatures and the hot steam generated in the autoclaves is reused for subsequent batches.
As AAC has been produced for more than 70 years and a number of advantages have been reported over other cement construction materials, one of the most important being its fire resistance, which helps to save lives. Others include:
However, a number of disadvantages have been found such as when it was introduced in the UK (where double-leaf masonry, also known as cavity walls, are the norm).