Polymer Concrete Concrete is made up of three basic components- water, aggregate (rock, sand, gravel) and cement. Cement usually in the form of fine powders, acts as a binding agent. Two types of aggregates are used which has been classified into coarse aggregate and fine aggregate. The coarse aggregates used are usually rocks of different sizes or diameters and they give body to concrete. On the other hand, fine aggregates (sand) are known to fill up the voids between the constituents of concrete. However, these voids are most often not completely filled up and as a result the strength of concrete reduces.
The porosity of concrete due to presence of water voids and air voids have led to reduced strength of concrete. Although the use of different methods of vibration reduce the pores and voids to some extent, the strength of concrete have not resulted in distinctive improvement. Hence impregnation of monomers and polymers in concrete is the latest technique to reduce the porosity of concrete, increase strength, toughness and durability of concrete. Polymers are a large class of materials consisting of many small molecules (called monomers) that can be linked together to form long chains, thus they are known as macromolecules. The types of polymer concrete are: a) Polymer Impregnated Concrete b) Polymer Cement Concrete c) Polymer Concrete d) Partially Impregnated & Surface coated Concrete