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Ir. Raymond WAN - Advanced Dry Mortar Technology For Construction Industry

This document discusses advanced dry mortar technology used in the construction industry. It provides details on: 1) The history of dry mortar technology and how it has evolved from traditional job-site mixing to pre-mixed dry mortars produced in factories using automated systems. 2) The advantages of dry mortar technology over job-site mixing including improved quality control, product consistency, and construction efficiency. 3) The complex raw materials and production processes involved in manufacturing advanced dry mortars, from precise automated batching to stringent quality control systems.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
1K views19 pages

Ir. Raymond WAN - Advanced Dry Mortar Technology For Construction Industry

This document discusses advanced dry mortar technology used in the construction industry. It provides details on: 1) The history of dry mortar technology and how it has evolved from traditional job-site mixing to pre-mixed dry mortars produced in factories using automated systems. 2) The advantages of dry mortar technology over job-site mixing including improved quality control, product consistency, and construction efficiency. 3) The complex raw materials and production processes involved in manufacturing advanced dry mortars, from precise automated batching to stringent quality control systems.

Uploaded by

hksmallray
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 19

Advanced Dry Mortar Technology for Construction Industry

Ir. Raymond Wan MEng, CEng, MIM, MICE, MICT, MHKIE, RPE

Abstract

Products developed based on advanced dry mortar technology have widely


been used for various applications in the construction industry in European
countries. Most of the dry mix products can provide outstanding properties to
meet nowadays stringent performance requirements. If used properly, they
can be very cost effective building materials to minimize some potential
construction problems and to ensure the long-term integrity of the structures.
However, the usage and popularity of dry mix products is still lagging behind in
Hong Kong. It is urged that the property owners or designers should study
their benefits and consider specifying the dry mix for their new developments
and renovation works so as to improve the quality of the structures by simple
materials approach.

1.0 Introduction

Lime-based and gypsum-based mortars have been used for thousands of


years in the erection of building structures. In the past, these simple paste
substance known as mortars have mainly been used as bedding materials for
laying stones and bricks as well as rendering materials for wall plaster
applications.

Similar applications of these basic mortars have continuously been used and
adopted in the construction for nearly all building structures. However, since
1950s the mineral binder within the mortar is gradually changed from lime and
gypsum to cement as a result of the easy availability of Portland cement.
From that time onwards, the so-called job-site mortar technology has been
introduced and applied in the construction industry worldwide. The main
ingredients of the job-site mortars are mainly cement and sand which are
transported separately to the job sites and mixed together by hand in the
appropriate ratio with the addition of water to produce wet mortars for simple
applications.

During the 1960s in Western Europe, there was a fast-growing demand in the

1
construction industry for speedy erection of new buildings with better quality of
construction. In order to improve the properties and performance of the
job-site mortars, small quantity of liquid dispersion and plasticizer was also
added to the mix. However, due to a shortage of skillful workers and an
increase in complexity of material applications, job-site mortar technology was
not able to adequately meet the demand on achieving specific performance
and consistent quality requirements.

Consequently, with the development and availability of new chemical additives


in powdery form, the dry-mix mortar technology was invented in Western
Europe to overcome the deficiency of the job-site mixed mortars with liquid
dispersions. The introduction of associated production facilities and machine
application techniques in Germany also accelerated the replacement of
job-site mortars by highly efficient factory premixed dry-mix mortars. These
pre-bagged dry mortar products can enable a significant increase on
construction productivity as well as a substantial enhancement on building
quality based on simple mix and apply operations. As a result, their
adaptations and applications are spread quickly to other modern countries
around the world.

Nowadays, with the continuous advancement in dry-mix mortar technology


over the years, some advanced dry mortar products have been developed and
introduced to the construction industry. These products can improve the
durability of the structures and provide simple solutions for some construction
problems. The applications of these advanced dry-mix mortars and their
associated systems are quite versatile and in general very cost effective.

2.0 Job-Site Mortar Technology

For a particular job-site mixed mortar, a specific ratio of cement and sand is
batched and mixed before adding the mixing water and sometimes with liquid
admixtures. The quality of the site-mixed mortar depends on the quality of
the raw materials, their correct batching ratio, the homogeneity of the mixture,
and the consistency of the fresh mortar. Under these batch and mix
conditions, the quality of the site-mixed mortars cannot easily be guaranteed.
The major disadvantages of site-mixed mortars are that the whole
manufacturing process cannot be controlled easily, and the workers who make
up the mortars cannot ensure the quality due to possible errors during various

2
steps in preparing the mortars. Besides, the liquid additives can either not
being added or only be added with a high risk of incorrect dosage and mixing
errors ending up with significant variations from batch to batch. With the
above constraints and potential inconsistency, mortars based on job-site mix
technology are unable to provide highly specialized properties of consistent
performance. Therefore, the applications of the job-site mixed mortars
nowadays are limited to those un-important low performance areas and
non-structural work without a concern on quality or durability.

3.0 Dry-Mix Mortar Technology

In contrast to job-site mortars, the modern dry-mix mortars are produced in a


special factory with dedicated facilities on batching and blending of all the
necessary ingredients in highly-controlled process. In this way, different types
of dry-mix mortar products with well-defined properties and performance to
meet specific requirements and applications can be produced. The use of
premixed dry mortars not only increases significantly product performance but
also guarantees a high degree of application reliability and consistency.
Factory premixed dry mortars ensure binders, fillers and chemical additives of
known quality are blended exactly in the same ratio thus ensuring high degree
of product performance and consistency.

4.0 Raw Materials for Dry-Mix Mortar

Most of the dry-mix mortar products require only the addition of potable water
and mixed with a simple mixer to produce high quality fresh mortars.
Although the dry mortars are relatively easy to prepare and use, the
ingredients and their proportions of each products are sometimes very
complicated. Most of the high performance products are usually based on
extensive development process and tests in order to achieve the designed
materials properties. In contrast to job-site mortar of simple ingredients and
proportions, the types of raw materials used for production of dry-mix mortars
are numerous and their mix proportions are complicated. The raw materials
used for dry-mix can generally be grouped into four main categories (binders,
fillers, chemical additives, pigments) and some of the basic generic types are
listed below:

(1) Binders

3
- Ordinary Portland cement (OPC)
- High alumina cement (HAC)
- Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS)
- Pulverized fuel ash (PFA)
- Micro silica
- Hydrated lime
- Gypsum
- Anhydrite
- Polymer

(2) Fillers
- Silica sand
- Quartz sand
- Limestone powder
- Silica powder
- Bentonite
- Perlite
- Polystyrene
- Vermiculite
- Expansion clay
- Cellulose fibre
- Polypropylene fibre

(3) Chemical Additives


- Cellulose esters
- Superplasticizers
- Thickening agents
- Air entraining agents
- Accelerating agents
- Retarding agents
- Defoaming agents
- Hydrophobic agents
- Plasticizing agents
- Shrinkage compensation agents

(4) Pigments
- Inorganic pigments
- Organic pigments

4
Most of the dry-mix mortar products contain both mineral cementitious binder
(e.g. OPC) and polymer binder (e.g. re-dispersible powder) and they are
normally packed in bags after mixing in the factory. Hence, the dry-mix
mortar products are also known as Pre-mixed or Pre-bagged Polymer Modified
Cementitious Mortar.

5.0 Production of Dry-Mix Mortar

Well established dry-mix mortar production plant (Figure 1) is normally


equipped with computer controlled batching, dosing and mixing facilities. For
some sizable plants, they also have their own sand drying and grading
facilities to handling the production of graded sands to be stored in silo
containers. Depending on the setting up and associated facilities of the plant,
the annual output production capacity can range from 20,000 Ton to 200,000
Ton.

Figure 1 – Modern Dry-Mix Production Plant

For advanced dry mortar manufacturing plants with modern facilities, the
production sequences are almost fully automatic with all the devices controlled

5
and monitored by electronic sensors. The automatic dosing system (Figure 2)
is usually very precise with extremely high accuracy (e.g. 30kg ± 3g, 0.01%)
especially for batching high performance chemical additives. The batching
sequences and mixing cycles are specially designed for each product to
ensure the powdery ingredients are blended to form a homogeneous mixture
within the batch. For a highly efficient modern plant, the mixing time for each
batch (say 2 Tons) may be as short as 2 to 5 minutes depending on type and
complexity of the product.

Figure 2 – Schematic Diagram Showing Automatic Dosing and Mixing System

Since the production is automatic and closely monitored by electronic devices,


the product consistency is expected to be high provided that a tight quality
control on the raw materials and products is performed. Therefore, for a top
or world class dry mortar plant, a comprehensive and stringent quality control
systems on both raw materials and finished products are implemented.
Besides, a team of research specialist and technical staff is required to be
stationed at the plant to provide continuous development and monitoring on
products and production controls to guarantee the product performance.

6
6.0 Type of Dry Mortar Products

In general, dry mortar products based on advanced dry-mix technology can be


classified into 2 main types (basic grade and technical grade) according to
their compositions and applications.

Type of Dry Mortar : Basic Grade Technical Grade


Compositions : Simple Complicate
Thixotropic mortar
Decorative plaster
Tile adhesive
Masonry mortar
Tile grout
Wall render
Waterproofing
Typical Products : Base plaster
Non shrink grout
Skimcoat
Repair mortar
Floor screed
Self leveling floor
Thermal insulation
Sound insulation

The basic dry mortar products are manufactured to replace the traditional
job-site mixed mortars with improved quality and enhanced consistency.
While the technical dry mortars are advanced products developed to meet
latest building requirements and usually with distinct high performance
properties which cannot be easily produced and achieved with job-site mixed
mortars.

7.0 Failure of External Finishes of Buildings

In the last decade, the problems of external and internal finishes failure in
forms of delaminated renders and debonded tiles have been reported from
many old buildings as well as some newly constructed buildings in Hong Kong.
Some of the likely causes of the failure in buildings and the possible
improvements with the use of advanced dry mortar building materials are
briefly discussed below:

The most common external and internal wall finish system (Figure 3) for
buildings in Hong Kong consists of the following elements:
(1) Concrete substrate with spatterdash

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(2) Wall render
(3) Tile adhesive
(4) Ceramic tile
(5) Tile grout

Spatterdash

Render

Concrete
Substrate Tile Adhesive

Tile Grout

Ceramic Tile

Figure 3 – Typical Wall Finishes System

There are four possible failure modes of the wall finishes:


(1) Wall render (render delaminated from the concrete substrate)
(2) Tile adhesive (adhesive debonded from the wall render)
(3) Ceramic tile (tile detached from the tile adhesive)
(4) Tile grout (grout material is cracked and fallen out of the tile joints)

7.1 Wall Render Failure

In Hong Kong, the use of site-mixed mortars for applications of wall render
nearly becomes obsolete except in small building projects at remote sites.
Most of the rendering mortars are supplied in form of ready-mixed mortar
produced from a concrete batching plant for bulk delivery to the job site using a
concrete truck. It is quite common and understandable to order a full truck
load of 6 or 7m3 wet mortar so as to save the delivery cost and simplify the
logistic arrangement. It has been known that a significant amount of
plasticizer with strong retardation strength is added by the producers to extend

8
the working life of the mortars. The normal industrial practice has been set
for 24 to 36 hours retardation thus pushing the usable life of the rendering
mortars to an extreme limit. Besides, certain amount of air-entraining agent is
dosed and sometimes PFA is added to reduce the weight of the mortar as well
as enhancing the workability.

With very strong retardation, the wet mortar does not hydrate and start initial
setting until the retarding effect has expired. In some worst cases, the
cement in the mortar applied onto the wall can remain in un-hydrated form
after a day or so. However, the free water within the applied mortar may be
reduced significantly due to suction by the substrate and evaporation to the
ambient. Thus, the water loss makes the mortar stiffened but in fact no real
strength (compressive and bond) generated from cement hydration even it is
already on the wall for sometimes. Without proper curing, the render surface
is relatively soft during the first few days and becomes dusty if PFA is also
included in the mortar. Due to a lack of water for delayed cement hydration,
the adhesion or bonding strength between the substrate and the wall render is
expected to be relatively weak. If any early age external vibration or
movement is imposed to these weak renders via surrounding building activities,
the possible slight premature delamination or further damage of the weak bond
may be resulted. From some random in-situ direct pull-off test results on
render of ready mixed mortar, the bonding strengths are quite low and typical
values of 0.1 to 0.2MPa are commonly found.

With the fact that some shrinkage cracks may have generated within the
render, weak render at localized area tends to delaminate and pop out when
subject to slight shear movement (thermal or shrinkage or structural) across
the bonding interface during its service life. Hence, occasional incidence of
falling and delaminated render at external façade (Figure 4) and internal walls
from new or old high rise buildings is reported. The reason of failure may be
associated with weak bonding of the cracked render layer to substrate due to
inherent mortar performance and/or sub-standard workmanship. Other
possible factors may be structural shortening of the buildings under creep,
structural movement, lack of joints within render, differentiate thermal
expansion / contraction of substrate and finishes, and poor quality spatter dash,
etc.

9
Figure 4 – Debonded Render of External Facade

Having understood the likely deficiency of the commonly adopted ready mixed
mortar and the associated potential risks on failure, a better render material
may be required so as to minimize or overcome some of the problems. A
feasible improved approach is to use proprietary dry premixed base plaster,
which can be applied with machine spraying, as wall rendering mortar of
superior performance.

A good quality dry-mix render usually includes the following special chemical
additives in appropriate proportions to enhance specific physical properties
during fresh and hardened stage:
(1) Cellulose ether - water retention to minimize suction and water loss so as to
enhance better hydration of cement, improve bonding and reduce
shrinkage cracks
(2) Starch ether – improve workability and sag resistance for better build-up
(3) Hydrated lime – set control and enhance workability
(4) Polymer binder – addition adhesive strength to smooth substrate and
increase flexibility to reduce shear stress induced by movements
(5) Hydrophobic agent (Optional) – extra water resistance properties

10
From the above, with the inclusion of special additives in the dry-mix render
material, it can provide and enhance necessary functions for a rendering
material during applications in particular workability and ease of build up.
Besides, extra benefits such as water retention, set control, reduce cracks,
improve bond and better elasticity/flexibility are also included to ensure
long-term durability and performance during the services life. Not only
consistent finish quality can be achieved but also the productivity rate can be
increased with the use of machine spraying application technique. More
important, it reduces the potential problems from workers during handling and
applications.

For some applications, liquid emulsion such as SBR dispersion is added to the
ready mixed mortar to provide waterproofing properties or hopefully to improve
bonding performance for external render. However, due to the delayed
application of ready mixed mortar, some isolated SBR films are already formed
before the mortar is applied onto the wall ending up with an undesirable
debonding zone affecting the adhesion performance. The addition of the
SBR dispersion is very difficult to control, therefore, the performance of the
mixed mortar is always questionable. With the use of dry-mix waterproofing
mortar for rendering, both the bonding strength and waterproofing properties
can be guaranteed. Based on the above technical information and
comparisons, the dry-mix plaster can surely out-perform traditional ready
mixed mortar in terms of performance and long-term durability. Therefore,
dry-mix plaster should be the preferred materials and adopted for new
rendering work to achieve better performance and quality.

However, it is important to note that not all the dry mix render products
commercially available are identical and some of them may not able to provide
all the desirable properties for the intended applications. In particular for
simple low grade dry mix render products some of the important ingredients
such as polymer binders (i.e. re-dispersible powders) are missing. These
simple grade render products are mainly developed for low rise brick wall (or
masonry) applications in Europe and they may not be suitable for high rise
smooth and dense concrete wall applications in Hong Kong. Without the
inclusion of the polymer binders, both flexibility and the adhesion strength of
the render are reduced in particular onto concrete wall surface cast with
smooth formwork. Besides, some imported products from overseas countries
may not suitable due to difference in climatic conditions and application

11
practice. Hence, it may be useful to discuss with a dry mortar specialist or
professional materials engineers on selection of appropriate products or
systems. With the use of advanced dry mortar technology, a leading dry
mortar expert can able to formulate precisely and develop high performance
dry mix materials with sufficient flexibility and adequate bonding strength to
fulfill the stringent requirements for use as a durable high-rise external finishes.

Nevertheless, if ready mixed mortar is still being used in the current projects or
to be adopted in coming developments, awareness on the potential problems
should be taken and precautions on critical areas should be considered in
order to avoid or minimize future failure.

7.2 Tile Adhesive and Tile Failure

In some cases, tile adhesive is debonded from the render layer (Figure 5 and 6)
due to poor bonding to the render surface. The reasons may be the outer
render surface to receive tile adhesive is relatively weak as a result of poor
cured ready mixed rendering mortar. Besides, it may also be related to the
inferior quality tile adhesive being prepared and used on site.

Figure 5 – Tile Adhesive Debonded from Render

12
Figure 6 – Delaminated Render and Debonded Tile

In Hong Kong, there are still specifications allowing the use of site-mixed
mortars with addition of liquid polymer dispersion as adhesive mortars for
sticking tiles. Theoretically, with the inclusion of good quality and sufficient
quantity of liquid polymer dispersion, the adhesion of the well mixed and
prepared mortar should be of acceptable performance for ceramic tiles.
However, it has been known that with the addition of the liquid dispersion, the
workability may be poor and the open time for tiling is relatively short. Hence,
there is a tendency for tile applicators to use less liquid dispersion in order to
have better workability as well as save cost for the dispersion and simplify the
mixing effort. There were some cases that the actual quantity of liquid
dispersion consumed on the projects was only a fraction of the expected
consumption indicating it was added much lower than the designed dosage.
It is possible that the liquid dispersion may have been diluted with reduced
solid contents that affecting the associated bond performance. With the
relatively short open time of the adhesive, there is a high risk of improper
adhesion bonding to the tiles. Hence, in order to avoid the inconsistency
adhesive quality due to intentional or un-intentional mal-practice, the use of

13
site mixed products with liquid emulsion should be avoided and they should be
replaced by proprietary dry mix adhesive.

At present, the use of pre-bagged tile adhesive is becoming more common


due to its more easier in handling and improved performance. However, most
of the specifications have not specified clearly the requirements of the tile
adhesive in relation to the tile types and sizes, locations or areas of tile
applications. In Hong Kong, until now, it is quite normal to specify for a basic
pre-bagged tile adhesive to meet the obsolete BS5980 : 1980 requirements for
all the tiling applications. Traditional tile adhesive to BS5980 may work for
normal small size ceramic wall and floor tile for internal use. It may be not
suitable for high quality non-porous tiles such as full-vitrified, porcelain or glass
tiles especially for external wall applications at high rise buildings. Nowadays,
more and more of these high quality non-porous tiles have been selected for
installation by the Architects due to better resistance to weathering and less
dirt pick-up. But the fact on the need to use special or appropriate adhesive
to stick them properly is always overlooked and usually not considered during
actual installation or included in specification clauses. Hence, the
incompatibility of tile and tile adhesive do exist and sometimes can result in
premature failure of bonding even at newly constructed buildings.

High quality non-porous tiles are known to be relatively difficult to bond due to
low surface porosity and low water absorption properties. A high class
polymer modified adhesive of improved quality must be used to ensure the
long term bonding adhesion between the tiles and the substrate. If these tiles
are installed at high level locations of a building then an adhesive with
enhanced additional flexibility is required to accommodate likely movements.
Better performance specifications from EN12004 are available for the
improved tile adhesives (e.g. Class C2TE). It is recommended to adopt these
latest standards for installation of tiles for new high rise building projects. It is
relatively important to select appropriate and correct class of adhesive to install
the selected tiles especially with those non-porous high performance tiles.
The architects may aware the tile quality has been improved but they do not
realize the associated need of special adhesive for these tiles. It is true to
point out that the adhesive systems work in the past with normal ceramic tiles
(water absorption < 3%) may not work anymore (or durable enough) with the
high performance non-porous tiles (water absorption < 0.2%).

14
With the advanced dry mix technology, different tile adhesives are available to
provide various critical performance properties such as high tensile adhesion
strength, long open time, good sag resistance, fast set and enhanced flexibility,
etc for most difficult applications on various substrates and tile types.

7.3 Tile Grout Failure

In the past, tile grouts are thought to be used as a material to fill the joints
between tiles for aesthetic purposes only. Therefore, inferior materials such
as white cement or simple coloured cement material are used to fill the tile
joints. Hence, sometimes the grout material cracks with white coloured
substance leaching out as efflorescence (Figure 7). Besides, rain water may
seepage and penetrate through the porous structures or cracks within the tile
grout. The trapped water behind the tile will slightly expand under heating
and create stress to weaken the bonding of the tile to the substrate repeatedly
resulting in localized failure.

Figure 7 – Efflorescence of Tile Grout

The tile grout, in fact, is a fairly important material to reduce the stress within

15
the whole tiling wall upon thermal movement of the tiles and structural
movement of the structure. It must also have the ability to prevent the water
from penetrating into the back side of the tile to create harmful stress and
weaken the tile bond. With the advanced dry mix technology, tile grout of
superior performance properties such as waterproofing, flexibility, low
shrinkage, good abrasion resistance, resistance to mould growth, stable colour
and resistance to efflorescence, etc. is available. The use of high
performance dry mix tile grout would help and enhance the overall integrity of
the external tile finishes at buildings. Although, the cost of the tile grout and
consumption quantity within a project is insignificant, correct choice of good
quality one will surely add benefit to the overall durability and appearance of
the building façade.

8.0 Improved Performance Wall Finishes System

It is important to point out that the failure of internal and external wall finishes
(i.e. render, tile adhesive, tile and grout) are complicated issues. The causes
of failure of wall finishes may be related to one or several combinations of the
possible factors or modes depending on the actual conditions for a particular
building. Nowadays, many people within the construction industry still think
the wall finishes especially wall render and tiling operations are simple and
non-structural works within building projects. Therefore, the importance and
details are always overlooked during the design and construction stages.
They only realize the critical impact on overall integrity once delamination or
failure occurs later resulting in serious damage or major repair.

The author only wants to highlight some of the potential problems encountered
with external and internal wall finishes based on traditional approach or
materials. Besides, a wall finish system with improved performance is
suggested with the use of polymer modified dry mix mortars to minimize the
failure risks due to problematic materials, questionable workmanship or
parameters that overlooked during design, etc.

The following is a suggested wall finish system with improved properties and
performance:
(1) Use proprietary key-coat to replace site-mixed spatter-dash
(2) Use premixed polymer modified base plaster to replace ready mixed mortar
(3) Use high class premixed flexible tile adhesive to replace traditional

16
standard grade tile adhesive
(4) Use low shrinkage waterproof tile grout to replace traditional tile joint filler

Through the use of the above high quality dry mix system, the integrity of the
wall finishes will surely be significantly enhanced with better bonding adhesion
strength for each interfacial layer and more flexibility to reduce induced shear
stress from various movements. The building will be more durable and the
potential savings on long term maintenance expenses will be substantial.

9.0 Comments

Based on the above brief discussion, good quality dry mix products are
available in the market with improved performance. Although, dry mortars
cannot totally solve all the construction problems, they can at least provide a
proper or more advanced materials approach to minimum the potential failure
and enhance the durability of structures. In fact, pre-bagged dry mix is no
longer of simple ingredients packed in paper bag based on cement, dry sand
and minor plasticizers. On the contrary, advanced dry mortars are very
complicated powdery mixtures with sophisticated chemical additives of latest
technology to provide wide range of superior performance to meet complex
construction requirements.

There are plenty of the dry mortar products available in the market to substitute
and improve the traditional materials such as leakage problems of sheet
waterproofing membranes replace by cementitious waterproofing slurries,
thick brittle epoxy floor replace by self leveling floor system, etc. Besides,
many innovative applications and environmentally friendly products have been
developed based on the advanced dry mortar technology with latest chemical
additives.

Advanced dry mortar products have been used with proven records in Europe
and Western developed countries for a long time and the trend is still growing.
Mainland China government has imposed regulations to encourage and
promote the use of dry mortars in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai to
minimize the construction problems and improve the building quality. Besides,
several professional official bodies have been set up to develop new
specifications and standards to provide directions and guidelines for the
construction industry to adopt latest dry mortar products and technology.

17
Some of them are developed in line with the latest European and ISO
standards.

However, the usage of dry mortar products in Hong Kong is comparative


lagging behind. In fact, the rate of implementation and usage of these
advanced construction products in China is much wide-spread and quicker
than those in Hong Kong. Most of building materials specifiers such as
architects or government engineers in Hong Kong do not aware the availability
of these new advanced products or some do not know how to make use of
them. Hence, it is urged that a study group should be setup within the
industry so as to provide some guidelines of dry mix products for use in Hong
Kong to improve the present construction quality. Besides, the property
owners or designers should start to study the outstanding benefits of the dry
mix and consider specifying them for their development and renovation works
to improve the quality of the structures in a simple and straight-forward
approach.

References

1. Y. Ohama, “Handbook of Polymer-Modified Concrete and Mortars –


Properties and Process Technology”, Noyes Publications.
2. R. Bayer, H. Lutz, “Dry Mortars”, Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial
Chemistry.
3. BS 4721 : 1981, “Specifications for Ready Mixed Building Mortars”,
British Standards Institution.
4. BS 5262 : 1991, “Code of Practice for External Renderings”, British
Standards Institution.
5. BS 5492 : 1990, Code of Practice for Internal Plastering”, British
Standards Institution.
6. BS 5980 : 1980, “Specification for Adhesives for Use with Ceramic
Tiles and Mosaics”, British Standards Institution.
7. BS 5385-1 : 1995, “Wall and Floor Tiling – Internal Tiling”, British
Standards Institution.
8. BS 5385-2 : 1991, “Wall and Floor Tiling – External Tiling”, British
Standards Institution.
9. BS 6431, EN 87 : 1991, “Ceramic Wall and Floor Tiles”, British
Standards Institution.
10. BS EN 12004 : 2001, “Adhesive for Tiles – Definitions and

18
Specifications”, British Standards Institution.
11. BS EN 13888 : 2002, “Grouts for Tiles – Definitions and Specifications”,
British Standards Institution.

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