What is Ferrocement?

by Team Goseeko 05/07/2021

Features of Ferrocement:

It is a new innovation in cement concrete because conventional reinforced concrete are unable to satisfy some requirements in the construction work.
It is made of wire meshes and cement mortar.
The wire meshes are closely spaced and then filled with rich mortar mix.
The diameter of wire mesh normally varies from 0.5 mm to 1 mm.Also the spacing of wire mesh is in between 5mm to 10 mm.
One should maintain water cement ratio from 0.4 to 0.45.
Thickness of its members varies from 2cm to 3cm with 2mm to 3mm external cover to the wire mesh.
The steel content used in ferrocement varies between 300 kg to 500 kg per cubic meter of mortar.

Following are the most important properties of ferrocement:

It is light in weight.
They have lesser dead weight of the elements due to small thickness.
It has high tensile strength and less crack width compared to conventional concrete.
One can easily repair it.
It has easier mouldability to any required shape.
It has non-corrosive nature.

Advantages of Ferrocement are as follows:

Use of ferrocement save the basic material like cement and steel.
It is more suitable to special structures like shells. Also the structures like roofs, silos, water tanks and pipelines.
It is highly suitable material for precast products. Because it has easy adaptability to prefabrication and lesser dead weight of the units cast.
One uses this material for casting curved benches or arches for parks, garden and open air cinema theatre.

Following are the some practical uses of ferrocement in construction field:

One uses it for casting domestic over-head water tanks. These are more cheaper than any other competitive materials.
Grain silos constructed in ferrocement helps in preserving the grain unaffected by moisture and rodents.
One uses it for making the boats.
One uses it to make the manhole cover.

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