Bims and cement additive mixtures tragacant evaluation of a new building materials

Energy sector has gained importance as in recent years the energy resources has faced with depletion problem and costs increased globally. Another issue that is as prominent as indispensability of energy?s procurement by conventional or sustainable sources is the efficient use of energy. The large part of the produced energy is consumed for heating purposes. Minimization of the energy consumed for heating purposes is possible via heat insulation.Nowadays, designing a building that has high energy efficiency is one of the fundamental features of sustainable construction and is a basic rule of leaving a livable environment for the next generations. In this respect, energy conservation is one of the top up to date issues. Another way to take advantage from energy conservation is to find out the aggregate material that has lower coefficient of thermal conductivity and then blending them with different production techniques.Moreover, in this work tragacanth, which lowers down coefficient of thermal conductivity and is thought as the binder together with cement, has been used. It is a kind of glue that leaks from the body of wild liquorice (Lat: Astragalus Glycyphyllos) that grows in prairies of Turkey?s south and southeastern regions. It has the shape of a 0.5-3 mm thick, has 1-3 cm sized disc or some other forms. It is white or light yellow and scentless. It is used to prepare of tablets, pastilles in pharmacy, to produce of paper, texture, and marbling paper, and used at paint industry. In this work, pumice that has large reserves in the city of Van?s Ahlat territory, has been used as aggregates. After having been grinded, pumices have been grouped as having maximum 0-4 mm, 4-8 mm and 8-12 mm diameter and to each group 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% of pumice, 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of tragacanth, and cement(KPC 325) as binder has been used, proportions have been determined weight-wise. According to the type and blend percentages of the binders, 51 different samples have been prepared. After having been left in water for 28 days, the prepared samples have been put on to natural drying for the required measurements.After the chemical analyses on the materials used at the experiments, intensity, thermal conductivity, specific heat capacities, water absorption measurements, drying speeds, tensile, compressive strength, and erosion tests have been made on the prepared samples. At these samples, thermal conductivity, compressive and tensile strength, theamount of erosion decrease as the amount of tragacanth and the diameter of pumice particles increase. While the selected small diameter particles? intensity values increase, their insulation features decrease; on the other hand, their strength values have been observed as increasing. Water absorption levels have been higher than the estimated limit levels of TSE (Turkish Standards Institution). Therefore, the fact that; the produced samples cannot be used for plaster type construction materials, external plasters and the surfaces that directly comes into contact with water, on the other side, they could be used for internal plasters, roof undercoating plaster or as the intermediate filling for the multi-unit walls, have been determined.Keywords: Pumice, Gum-Tragacanth, Cement, Composite Material, Porosity, Heat Transfer Coefficient