Type of sand color yellow or. What sand to use: types and characteristics of construction sand

Looking at a pile of sand brought to a site, two builders will behave differently.

The newcomer will cast an indifferent glance at her and take up the shovel.

An experienced builder will first take a handful of sand, look at it carefully and rub it in his palms. After that, he will give a verdict: it’s suitable for concrete, but not suitable for plaster and masonry.

What is the secret of construction sand that requires such careful evaluation? We will examine this issue in more detail.

Physical and mechanical characteristics

Volume weight

It shows the mass of 1 m3 of sand in its natural state (wet, with all impurities). On average, the volumetric weight of this material ranges from 1500 to 1800 kg.

The composition of construction sand is assessed according to the following parameters:

1. Granulometric;
2. Mineral;
3. Chemical.

Granulometric shows the percentage of grains of different sizes. To determine it, sand is sifted through calibrated sieves (from 0.16 mm to 10 mm).

A sieve with aperture sizes of 5 and 10 mm reveals gravel granules. GOST allows the presence of grains measuring 1 cm. However, their quantity should be no more than 0.5% of the total mass of sand.

Granules larger than 5 mm are normalized as follows:

1. Maximum content - up to 10% in natural;
2. up to 15% in crushed;
3. up to 5% in enriched sand.

Mineral composition

Chemical composition

It plays an important role in determining the suitability of bulk material in various fields of construction. Red, yellow, and orange shades indicate the presence of oxidized metals. Green and blue colors characteristic of river sand, which contains aluminum salts.

Types of construction sand

The classic definition is that sand is a mixture of mineral particles (quartz, mica, limestone) formed as a result of natural or artificial destruction of rocks.

GOST 8736-93 lays out the most important properties of sand “on the shelves”. According to this standard, sand is divided into two classes:

• Class I - very coarse, then comes sand of increased coarseness, coarse, medium and fine;
• Class II - very large, extra large, large, medium, small, very small, thin and very thin.

The main difference between these classes is that lower quality sand (second class) includes three additional fractions. Fine dust particles are an undesirable component of mortars. They impair the bond between the large sand granules that the cement binds.

In real production there is no such fine gradation.

Here the extracted sand is conventionally divided into three fractions:

• 0.5-1 mm – small;
• 1.5-2 mm – average;
• 2.5-3.5 mm – large.

Sands with a particle size modulus of 2-2.5 mm are used for the production of concrete and reinforced concrete structures. Bulk material measuring 1.5-2 mm is used for making bricks. The finest sand is used for preparing dry construction mixtures.

Having taken note of the GOST classification, let’s move on to the practical aspects of the origin and use of construction sand.

Based on the type of production, they are distinguished:

• Career;
• River;
• Nautical;
• Quartz (artificial) sand.

Career

The name clearly indicates the origin of the sand. It contains clay and stones, so quarry material is used to a limited extent: for site planning, backfilling under concrete screeds or foundations.

To improve its properties, quarry sand is washed with water right at the mining site, freeing it from dust particles and clay. This is how alluvial (washed) sand is obtained. It is suitable for plastering and masonry mortars. In addition, sifting through sieves can be used to remove clay.

Important practical conclusion: If you are offered to buy quarry (gully) sand, do not forget to check whether it has been cleaned (washed, sifted) or not.

Areas of application of washed (sifted) quarry sand:

• cement screed, masonry and plaster mortars;
• Finishing work;
• brick production;
• foundation installation;
• preparation of concrete.

river sand

This building material is extracted by a dredger from the river bottom. There are no clay particles and very few stones in river sand. This allows you to use it for concrete work without restrictions.

It is very valuable that medium-sized river sand (1.8-2.2 mm) practically does not shrink. This makes it ideal for masonry and plastering.

Quarry sand is more difficult to use in this capacity. In the solution it settles to the bottom and has to be stirred periodically.

Areas of application of river sand:

• concrete production;
• brick production;
• masonry work and cement screed;
• preparation of asphalt concrete;
• drainage device;
• filler for paints and grouts.

Sea sand has similar properties to river sand. It is also highly valued in construction for its high purity and uniformity of particle size distribution.

Quartz sand

This material is obtained by mechanical crushing of quartz-containing rocks. It is homogeneous in structure, chemically inert and pure.

The main area of ​​application of this type of sand is the construction materials industry. It goes into dry building mixtures, sand-lime bricks, blocks and concrete, and is used to prepare grinding compounds. Landscape design, expensive interior and facade plasters also cannot do without quartz sand.

It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question which sand is better., since each material is intended for certain types of work.

Still, the main conclusions are already obvious:

• for brick and large-block masonry, it is better to take river sand. If you mix it with a small amount of unwashed quarry sand, the solution will become more plastic (due to clay particles);
• for concrete, coarse or medium river sand is better suited (you can add a little fine washed quarry sand to it);
• For plaster, washed quarry sand with or without a small addition of river sand is better suited.

Approximate prices

Obviously, the cost of sand is higher, the more manipulations had to be done with it during extraction and cleaning.

The cheapest is quarry unwashed and unsown. Its price per cube ranges from 300 to 400 rubles. Quarry sand purified by water or sifting for construction work will cost from 550 to 700 rubles per 1 m3 with delivery.

River sand is significantly more expensive than quarry sand. Its price starts at 750 rubles and ends at 950 rubles/m3.

Fractionated quartz sand is the most expensive. When purchasing from 10 tons (1 KAMAZ), its price with delivery is from 4,500 rubles per cubic meter.

Most often, when a person imagines summer, he has the following associations: sea, sun, beach and hot yellow sand. So soft, golden or orange, red, black, or maybe green? Colorful and unique, they are located all over the world, and some are truly incredible.

Beaches of all colors of the rainbow

Picturesque and colorful sandy beaches can be found in many parts of the world. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the whitest sand in the world is in Australia. Golden beaches can be found in Manduria (Italy). The individual color of each grain is influenced by minerals, rock composition, plants and even animals living in the area. The same beach can appear more yellow, gold, brown or bright orange depending on the time of day, sun and weather.

The most beautiful and unusual beaches

The pink sands of the beach on Harbor Island look very unusual ( Bahamas). Located on east side islands, they have this hue due to the red shells of single-celled marine animals mixed with the white sand. The green beach of Papakolea in Hawaii or the coast of Floreana Island looks very harmonious ( Galapagos Islands). If you carefully examine a handful of such sand, you can see a huge number of glassy olive-colored crystals; they make up most of the sand, as they are washed out of local rocks.

In Puerto Rico, on the island of Vieques, the red sand on the beach surprises with its beauty and unusualness. A true hidden gem of nature is Kaihalulu Beach on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Here you can also see dark red sand. Local rocks are rich in iron, which is responsible for such a rich shade. It's not easy to get here because it's beautiful place extremely isolated and difficult to access.

What is sand?

Sand is a loose, granular material that covers the beaches, riverbeds, and deserts of the world. It is made up of different materials that vary depending on location. The most common component of sand is silica in the form of quartz, as well as rocks and minerals such as feldspar and mica. Thanks to weathering processes (wind, rain, thawing, freezing), all these rocks and minerals are gradually crushed and turned into small grains.

Tropical islands such as Hawaii do not have rich sources of quartz, so the sand is different in these places. It may be white due to the presence of calcium carbonate, obtained from the shells and skeletons of marine organisms. Tropical beaches may also have black sand, which is made up of dark volcanic glass. Surprisingly little is known about the origins of sand in the world's major deserts. Research shows that the Sahara Desert was once lush before climate change turned it into a desert.

Such different sand

Why does sand vary so much in color in different parts of the world? Nature never ceases to amaze everyone with its diversity, including extremely colorful sandy beaches, painted in rainbow shades: green, red, orange, pink, purple, brown, golden yellow and white. And some beaches have black sand. So what causes the difference? The answer lies in the depths of the geology of the entire coastline. Sand is fragments of rocks and minerals such as quartz and iron that range in size from 63 microns (one thousandth of a millimeter) to two millimeters.

Sand from a geological point of view

The geology of the surrounding areas greatly influences the composition and color of the sand. For example, on a coast consisting of rock formed by volcanic eruptions (granites), the sand will be lighter. If most of the coast contains metamorphic rocks that have been folded and mixed with other rocks, allowing them to increase the amount of oxides such as iron, then the shades will be much richer.

When various rocks break down into the grains that make up beach sand, their color is largely determined by the presence or absence of iron, a very common mineral on Earth. When iron minerals are exposed to air, they begin to oxidize, producing red, orange or yellow sand. Sometimes color depends not only on geological rocks. It is influenced by organisms living in water. Some beaches are made up of tiny fragments of coral and the skeletal remains of sea creatures such as mollusks, crustaceans and foraminifera, which give the sand a pearly white hue.

Creation and color of the beach

Beaches can form anywhere where a sea or ocean cuts into a continent. For thousands of years the waves have eroded coastline, creating flat spaces called beaches. These new expanses begin to accumulate sediments falling down from the surrounding highlands, as well as eroded, wave-thrown debris from the ocean floor. Coastal winds and storms also contribute to the creation of beaches. The color of the sand at any given location usually reflects the surrounding landscape and the hues of the adjacent ocean floor.

Thanks to its unique geology, Hawaii has an abundance of colorful beaches that you won't find anywhere else in the world. For example, the jet-black sand of Punaluu Beach is the result of volcanic activity. It includes crumbs of basalt and is considered the blackest in the world. White sand Hyams beach is named the whitest and cleanest in the world. It is so crushed that it resembles powdered sugar. Located on Hawaiian island Maui's Kaihalulu Beach is famous for being one of the few places in the world to have iron-rich red sand.

Is a black sand beach rare or common?

The most unusual looking beaches are those with black sand, which is simply a stunning result of volcanic activity near the coast. Black sand can be seen on top of quartz sand in regions of high earth activity, on the slopes of volcanoes, and in areas where most rocks are dark in color and poor in silica. Most of them are rich in iron, and this sand is heavier in weight than ordinary quartz sand. Why is the sand black? It may consist of a certain number of different dark minerals of volcanic nature.

Places where there is a black sand beach are often the source of deposits of such precious stones, like garnets, rubies, sapphires, topazes and, of course, diamonds, which are formed in the vicinity of volcanoes and can erupt outward along with lava flows. Black sand beaches can be found in Argentina, the South Pacific Islands, Tahiti, the Philippines, California, Greece, Antilles, Hawaii.

The world is full beautiful beaches, and there is no doubt about it. And although most people would happily soak up the bright sun, lying on snow-white or golden sand, it is still worth paying attention to other beaches, with sands of other colors of the rainbow.

There is an established opinion that choosing sand is quite easy: I ordered construction sand - here you have both a raw material component for concrete and backfill for a path. But this opinion is wrong. Since there are several varieties of sand, which have their own distinctive characteristics, and are used to perform certain jobs.

Classification

So, according to the place of origin, sand is usually classified into the following types:

river sand

River sand is mined from the bottom of rivers. It is characterized by natural purity and good water-permeability qualities. The size of sand grains in river sand ranges from 0.3 to 0.5 mm.

This type is used for the preparation of concrete solutions, cement screeds, treatment filters, and drainage structures. It is worth noting that when preparing a concrete mixture, this type of sand quickly settles, so the solution must be constantly stirred. The cost of river sand ranges from 600 to 800 rubles per 1 m 3.

Quarry sand

Quite logically, quarry sand is mined using the open-pit method and includes impurities in its composition: dust particles, stones. Sand grains of quarry sand are much smaller than those of river sand, their sizes range from 0.6 to 3.2 mm.

In its original unprocessed form, the building material can be used to construct trenches or as a foundation foundation. Typically, leading manufacturers wash and screen quarry sand. In this case, it can be used when performing plastering and finishing work, to create an asphalt concrete mixture, and to form a screed.

Sea sand

This non-metallic mineral is extracted from the seabed using hydraulic projectiles. There are practically no foreign impurities in it, and salt is involved in purification.

This type of sand is considered the most popular. It is used everywhere, from the creation of concrete structures to the formation of finely dispersed dry mixtures. But despite the unique characteristics of this building material, there is a shortage of it, since it cannot be mass produced.

Sometimes construction sand is considered a separate type. But, as a rule, it means both river and quarry sand. River sand can be of two colors - yellow and gray, and quarry sand - brown and yellow.

But it turns out that in nature there is also black sand, which shines like metal. It can be found in different places globe. This type of sand is formed as a result of geological processes.

This mineral consists of dark-colored heavy minerals and is formed by washing out the light components. The main minerals are magnetite, ilmenite, hematite.

Such sands are characterized by high radioactivity - 50-300 microroentgens per hour, but sometimes this parameter can reach a thousand microroentgens per hour. Due to its high radioactivity, this mineral is not used in construction and economic activities.

Artificial sand

It is worth noting that the above types of sand are natural, as they were formed by the natural destruction of rocks. But there is also on the market artificial sand, created by crushing marble, limestone, granite.

The most popular among artificial species sand is quartz. It is made by grinding and dispersing the white quartz mineral to obtain a homogeneous fraction. It differs from natural types of sand in that it does not contain impurities and has a homogeneous composition. These advantages allow you to accurately calculate the parameters of a structure made on quartz sand.

Sand is a bulk material of inorganic origin, so it does not interact chemically with the components of mortars. Sand contains rock particles that, as a result, natural phenomena acquired a round or pointed shape, the diameter of the grains is 0.05–5.0 mm. According to non-specialists, the choice of this material does not depend on the specific intended purpose. But this is a mistake - for certain jobs, bulk substances with the appropriate chemical and physical characteristics are purchased. Let's consider the classification characteristics of this material - natural and artificial.

Varieties of natural sand

Bulk material of natural origin is the result of the natural destruction of rocks. Depending on the location, this material is divided into quarry (mountain, ravine), river and sea.

• The most widespread type is the open-pit mine. Its disadvantage is the presence of impurities in the form of pebbles and dust particles. The grains are small - from 0.6 to 3.2 mm, color - yellow or brown. Unrefined, this material can be used as a cushion for foundation structures or for trenches. For mortars, bulk material is used, purified from impurities by one of two possible options– by washing or sifting. Alluvial sand is sand that is extracted using a significant amount of water and special equipment - a decanter. In it, the mass settles and impurities are subsequently removed along with water. This material is fine-grained, the particle diameter is on average 0.6 mm. The second category of processed material is seeded. In this case, impurities are removed by mechanical sifting of the mass. Purified quarry sands - inexpensive and easy to use - are used at all stages of the construction process where the presence of bulk sand is required.
• The place where river sand is extracted is the river bottom. This material does not need to be cleaned, the particles are small - 1.5–2.2 mm, oval in shape, color - yellow or gray. Its valuable quality is the absence of clay inclusions that reduce the effectiveness of mortars and mixtures. The downside is the high cost, so the river variety is often replaced with a cheaper quarry analogue.

Attention! When making concrete mixtures, river-type sand settles quickly, which requires constant mixing of the concrete.

• Sea sand is a non-metallic mineral extracted using hydraulic projectiles. This is a pure material, practically free of harmful impurities. It can be used in almost all areas - from the production of concrete mixtures to the creation of dry ready-made fine compositions and use in sandblasting units. The extraction of this mineral is quite difficult, so its mass production is impossible.
• A rather rare, one might say exotic, variety of this fossil is black sand. The reason for its formation is geological processes that wash away light components from dark-colored heavy minerals - hematites, ilmenites, magnetites. Such a fossil has no industrial significance not only because of its low prevalence, but also due to its high radioactivity.

Artificial sands - varieties and their characteristics

Uneven distribution of mining sites natural sands became the reason for the development of the production of artificial analogues, which are classified depending on the feedstock, crushed to the required fraction:

• Crushed. It is obtained from marble, diabase, basalt, and metallurgical slag. Designed for acid-resistant or decorative mixtures.
• To produce porous sand, tuff, pumice, volcanic slag and even wood waste are used as raw materials.
• Expanded clay fine aggregates for lightweight concrete are made by grinding expanded clay raw materials. This product can be used as a thermal insulation material.
• Agloporite. The source is clay-containing raw materials, slag or ash formed during clay firing.
• Perlite sands are made by heat treatment of crushed glasses of volcanic origin, which are called obsidians or perlites. The color of the resulting product is white or light gray. Used in the production of insulating products.
• “White sands” - quartz - received this name due to their characteristic “milky” shade. Although more often you can find a product made from yellowish quartz, which contains a certain amount of clay impurities. This high-quality material is popular not only in construction (for decorative and finishing works), but also in water treatment systems and glass and porcelain production.

Definition! The concept of “construction sand” does not mean a separate type of this material, but a group of natural and artificial bulk substances, adapted according to their functional characteristics for use in construction.

Grades and fractions of sand

One of the important characteristics of this material, which determines the scope of its application, is strength, the value of which is indicated by the brand:

• for grade 800, the starting material is igneous rocks;
• 400 – metamorphic rocks;
• 300 – sedimentary rocks.

An equally important factor determining the ability of a material to be used to perform a specific task is the grain size. The following varieties are found:

• Dusty. The structure is very fine, particle size is up to 0.14 mm. This abrasive is divided into three more types - low-moisture, wet, and water-saturated.
• Fine – grain size 1.5–2.0 mm.
• Medium size – 2.0–2.5 mm.
• Large – 2.5–3.0 mm.
• Increased coarseness – 3.0–3.5 mm.
• Very large – from 3.5 mm.

A value such as the filtration coefficient shows the speed of water passing through sand under the conditions defined by GOST 25584. It depends on the porosity of the material.

Definition! For materials of natural origin, the bulk density is 1300–1500 kg/m3. As humidity increases, this figure increases.

To determine the quality of a bulk substance, indicators such as radioactivity class and the percentage of impurities - dusty, silty and clayey - are also used. In very fine and fine sands, the permissible limit for the content of such impurities is 5%, in other types - 3%.

What questions do we often receive from our clients?

What is the main difference between sand and clay

The different mineral and chemical composition of these two materials determine their three main differences, the essence of which is reflected in the table:

What is the difference between sand and sandstone?

Sand grains that make up sandstone - sedimentary rock, tightly connected by clay, carbonate or other materials. Based on the time of appearance, bonding substances are divided into syngenetic - which appeared in the rock at the same time as sand grains, and epigenetic - which filled the voids between the grains after a certain period. Sandstones can be monomineral, consisting of grains of one mineral, or polymictic, consisting of several initial components.

What kind of sand is needed for the foundation?

The foundation is the basis of the structure, and it must be strong and reliable. The best option for this type of work is medium-fraction alluvium material. He combines affordable price and the required level of quality. The same variety is used for making screeds.

Which sand is best to use for masonry

What kind of sand is needed for sandblasting

Some craftsmen, trying to save money, use ordinary quarry material for this purpose. Such an abrasive can cause irreparable harm not only to the product being processed, but also to the device itself. The most common option in this case is quartz sand.

Attention! When working with quartz abrasive, it is imperative to follow safety rules, since it generates a large amount of dust that can cause silicosis.

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