Differences Between Grouting Agent and Grouting Material

Grouting agents and grouting materials are essential in construction, and although they differ by just one word, they are two completely different materials.

Main Components of Concrete Grouting Agent

The primary components of concrete grouting agents are: cement expansion agent, water-reducing agent, air-entraining agent, and lubricant, used for filling prestressed ducts.

Main Uses of Grouting Agent

Grouting agents are mainly used for filling post-tensioned prestressed ducts, preventing corrosion of prestressed steel, ensuring effective stress transfer between the prestressed tendons and concrete structure, making the grout in the ducts full and dense, maintaining a certain pH range, completely encasing the prestressed steel, and ensuring that the grout, once hardened, has high strength, elastic modulus, expansion without shrinkage, and bonding strength.

Differences Between Grouting Agent and Grouting Material

Both grouting agents and grouting materials are similar in appearance, being dry powder, but they are used and applied differently. Here’s a detailed look at their differences:

Grouting agent is a dry blend of multiple components, including water-reducing, expanding, plastic-retaining, enhancing, anti-segregation, and mineral admixtures. A proper amount of prestressed grouting agent mixed homogeneously with cement becomes grouting material. Grouting material is a mixture of grouting agent and cement. If you buy grouting agent alone, you need to purchase cement separately and mix them to form the grouting material.

Before construction, grouting material only requires the addition of water according to the water-material ratio standard and uniform mixing before use. In contrast, the grouting agent needs to be mixed with a specified amount of cement, as instructed by the supplier, to form grouting material before adding water and mixing uniformly. Additionally, when choosing cement, it is essential to analyze its components to ensure the effectiveness of the grouting material.

Applications

Grouting agents and materials are also suitable for filling post-tensioned prestressed ducts, anchoring grouting of anchor systems, leak-stopping grouting of continuous wall heads, curtain grouting, equipment foundation grouting, bedding grouting of base plates, beam-column joints, emergency repairs, and bolt anchoring. They are self-compacting without vibration, slightly expansive, oil-resistant, corrosion-resistant, frost-resistant, and seepage-resistant. They are used for grouting voids in high-strength steel prestressed concrete components, reinforcing bridges, and can be put into operation 24 hours after application. They bond firmly with hardened concrete and repair without visible traces, with controlled and moderate grout setting time.

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