Concrete Blocks

Concrete blocks are one of the precast concrete products that are used in the construction industry. Concrete blocks are produced by mixing cement mixes with various types of aggregate such as gravel, sand, crushed stone, air cooled slag, coal cinders, clay, volcanic cinders and pumice. Concrete blocks are made in different shapes and sizes and they may be hollow or solid. Solid concrete blocks are the more commonly used and they provide strength and stability to the structure.

Concrete Units or blocks are the most widely used building material to form a wall or a fence. Concrete masonry units are precast. It is a fact that they are made and hardened before they are used in the building construction. Many types of concrete blocks are manufactured namely normal insulated, thermal insulated, light weight blocks, normal weight concrete, hollow concrete, solid units, hourdi blocks, window or doors concrete, lintels and pathway blocks and many more. Concrete block units are designed with various types and strength based on the usage. Concrete blocks with the size range of 40cm length and 20cm height. Apart from the nominal blocks a wide range of special shaped concrete blocks are designed for various purpose. PPC, hardening Portland cement are some of the materials used to construct concrete unit blocks. One or more hollow cores are made inside the hollow concrete units which helps them to maintain a reduced cross sectional area over less weightage up to 25 percent. This also makes them more feasible to lift. These hollows in the concrete help the water pipe and electrical wires to run through them. Full sized concretes are rectangle in shape and the half sized is cubical. Solid concretes are totally solid and weighs more than the hollow concrete units. These types of concretes are used in the construction of fence and walls. Whole solid concrete units are referred to as stackable units and some are referred to as paved stones. Stackable blocks are made to build strong walls. Paving stones are flat and the normal regular forms which resembles tiles mainly used in the path forms. Concrete blocks are a good solution for thermal insulated buildings. They are faster to construct. They are very much resistant to the earthquakes. Concrete blocks absorb minimum water and saves on energy. Aerated autoclave concrete units are more like bricks but have much better features than a brick. They look to be lighter and quite bigger than the normal bricks. Using the aerated autoclaved concretes reduces the cost and the consumption of the concrete is also much lesser.

Hollow concrete blocks are manufactured from lightweight aggregate and contain a void area in the block, which is more than 25% of the total area of the block. The hollow part may be divided into several components based on the requirement. There are different types of hollow concrete blocks such as corner blocks, pillar blocks, lintel blocks, stretcher blocks, Jamb blocks, frogged brick block and bull nose block. Concrete stretcher blocks are used at the corner of the structures and are the most commonly used hollow blocks in construction. Concrete corner blocks are also used at the corners of the structures but may be used at window or door openings. Jamb concrete blocks are used when there are elaborate window openings in the wall. Partition concrete blocks are used to build partition walls and have a larger height than its breadth. The hollow part of a partition concrete block is divided into two or three components. Lintel or beam blocks are used for the provision of lintel beams, which make the top portion of the doors and window to support the weight from the top. Mafraq industrial area in Abu Dhabi Al quoz 1 in Dubai and Jebel Ali industrial area in Jebel Ali are some of the popular areas in UAE to find manufacturers and suppliers of concrete blocks.