What is Artificial Sand? | Artificial sand properties and its advantages

 Artificial Sand:

Simply artificial sand means the sand which is obtained from stone crusher. After the sieveing the crushed stones, the fine aggregates so obtained is termed as artificial sand.

• The place where natural sand is not available, at that place artificial sand is used in the building construction work. Use of artificial sand protects the environment system, hence use of sand from river bed can be stopped.
• Artificial sand is not the sand obtained from natural bed or bank of the river or sand from the sea beach, but it is the sand obtained from crushing the natural stone like compact basalt with the help of stone crusher.
• In stone crusher, there are different grades of sieves through which the crushed stone is passed so as to get required grade of aggregates. Various sizes of coarse aggregates are obtained which are further used for various types of concreting work. A sieve is provided through which only fine aggregates are passed and these fine aggregates is termed as "artificial sand".

Properties of Artificial Sand:

1. Any required uniform size which can be obtained from stone crusher which is desirable to make good quality of concrete and mortar.
2. For example,
3.     Fine aggregates of 4.75 mm size which is the largest size can uniformly be obtained from stone crusher and which is further used for concrete work and very fine sand of uniform size is also obtained from the stone crusher which is further used for cement mortar.
4. It has rough surface texture which is generally preferable for concrete and mortar and gives more compressive strength. Specific gravity of artificial sand falls in between 2.6 to 2.8.
5. Density of artificial sand falls in between 17 to 25 kN/m².
6. Water absorption in case of artificial sand is almost negligible.
7. Many aggregates have a tendancy to attract the moisture which is adsorbed around each particle. But artificial sand has less tendancy to attract the moisture.
8. It shows the minimum expansion and contraction under changing temperature.
9. Bulking of sand is a phenomenon due to which the aggregate swells by absorbing moisture from humid air. Since artificial sand has less tendancy to absorb the moisture, its phenomenon of bulking is less.
10. It does not have any organic impurities but have small amount of inorganic impurities since the stone is taken out from the quarry.

 

Advantages of Artificial Sand:

• Artificial sand is available from any nearby source of stone crusher.
• It is completely free from mud or any other impurities hence no need to washing with water. Frequent use of natural sand obtained from the river bed may disturb the path of river and it further require the river training work which is costly affairs and indirectly it affects on the eco-system, but artificial sand do not disturb the eco-system.
• Uniform grading of the sand particles can be obtained in case of artificial sand. Hence no need to sieve again but sieving of natural sand is done so as to get required grade of sand.
• Artificial sand is a good fine aggregate material for concrete and mortar.
• There is less bulking of sand as it is occurred more in case natural sand.
• Since the stone crushers are located nearby to the city, it becomes economical to transport, but the natural sand is brought to the city from long distance.