On Mon, 05 Sep 2005 10:15:32 +0100, Andrew Gabriel
wrote:

[just to keep in the thread]

Had a read of Fry's Concrete on the weekend. The short answer to strength
of cement mortars is as follows. Particle size distribution, as I
propounded, is more or less impossible to correlate with anything in
particular. Angular aggregates tend to result in a lower workability than
rounded ones, which rather stands to reason if you think about it.
Compressive and flexural strength are well correllated with the elastic
modulus of the aggregate. To the best of my knowledge all the building
sands normally available in the UK are silica (quartz) sands, so there
should be little variation. I do hope this isn't too dry going. Fry's is
in excess of 500 pages of this sort of stuff.

John Schmitt

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