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Arcosa Lightweight’s expanded shale and clay aggregates are key to creating high-performance, lightweight concrete masonry units (CMUs) that offer reduced weight, improved thermal efficiency, and enhanced fire resistance.
By incorporating lightweight aggregates, CMUs achieve the strength and durability needed for load-bearing applications while offering significant benefits in construction efficiency, worker safety, and overall building performance.
Concrete Masonry Units (CMUs) made with Arcosa Lightweight provide reduced weight for easier handling, enhanced fire resistance, improved thermal efficiency, and long-lasting durability, making them ideal for safe, energy-efficient, and low-maintenance structures.
Lightweight CMUs are 30-40% lighter than traditional units, making them easier to handle and install. This weight reduction improves worker safety, increases productivity, and lowers construction costs by allowing faster, safer installation.
The unique properties of Arcosa aggregates, including trapped air voids, provide excellent fire resistance and improved thermal insulation. Lightweight CMUs can achieve fire ratings of up to four hours, contributing to safer, more energy-efficient structures.
Arcosa Lightweight aggregates create CMUs with high strength, durability, and reduced permeability.These qualities result in long-lasting, low-maintenance walls that provide sound and impact resistance, contributing to overall structural efficiency.
As Guntersville, Alabama prepares to open its first new high school since 1969, Arcosa Lightweight and its customer, Kirkpatrick Concrete, North Division, are playing a key role in ensuring the new facility is built to last and, most importantly, to protect students and staff.
Situated in an area prone to severe weather, the decision to use lightweight concrete masonry units (CMUs) was crucial for enhancing safety, durability, and sustainability.
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Students and staff at the new Clinch County K-12 School in Homerville, Georgia, may never notice the concrete block in the walls of their new school. Yet these blocks—specifically the lightweight units made with Arcosa’s lightweight aggregate—play a quiet but crucial role across all three campus buildings: ensuring structural integrity, optimizing thermal performance, and, most importantly, enhancing fire resistance.
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When the city of Fort Payne, Alabama embarked on an initiative to bolster its educational facilities, they chose concrete masonry for a new $19 million elementary school. The 100,000-square-foot building is constructed using lightweight, grey concrete masonry units (CMUs) produced by Kirkpatrick Concrete’s Guntersville, Alabama block division.
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Lightweight aggregates reduce CMU weight by up to 40% without compromising structural strength, simplifying installation and lowering dead load on the foundation.
The ceramic properties of Arcosa aggregates offer enhanced fire resistance and improved thermal performance, contributing to safer, more efficient buildings.
Arcosa’s aggregates create CMUs with sound-dampening and impact-resistant properties, adding durability and acoustic comfort to walls in various building types.
Bill Wolfe is an accomplished Marketing and Technical Manager at Arcosa Lightweight, with over three decades of experience. Based in Saratoga County, New York, Bill specializes in lightweight aggregate applications for enhanced structural performance and sustainability.
