Difference Between Mortar and Concrete | What Is Mortar & Concrete | Types of Mortar & Concrete

What Is Mortar?

Mortar is a mixture in varying proportions of binding material like cement or lime and an inert material like sand or surkhi (crushed burnt brick) or crushed stone mixed with water.

According to requirement, definite quantities of cementing material, sand, or surkhi and water is added and thoroughly mixed to make a paste for binding brick or stone masonry and for providing a protective and finishing covering on the inner and outer faces of construction as plaster.

Mortar serves various functions in civil engineering structures.

It provides cohesion between bricks or stones and, when hardened, holds the materials together to make those into a single mass of considerable strength.

Mortar forms an even bed between two courses of masonry works, which helps to transfer the loads from the upper to lower layers.

It provides resistance against weathering action, particularly against rain.

It further acts as a medium for uniformly distributing the forces throughout the structure.

A good mortar should be easily workable, i.e., neither too stiff nor too lean or plastic, and should be capable of retaining sufficient water.

It should be capable of offering sufficient resistance to water penetration and should be durable.

The mortar should set and harden quickly for faster construction. Further, it should not develop any cracks on drying.

The mortar should not react chemically to the materials being used for jointing. Choice of mortar and its proportion for binding masonry is governed by

Also, read: Mortar Vs Grout | What Is Motor and Grout | Types of Motor and Grout | Difference Between Mortar and Grout

Types of Mortar.

Mortar is made by using one or more of the following cementing materials depending on the nature of the job, Climatic condition, etc.

• Cement Mortar 
• Lime Mortar
• Surkhi Mortar
• Gauged mortar
• Gypsum Mortar 

What Is Concrete?

Concrete is one of the most important man-made building material used in all major construction projects.

Nowadays, concrete plays an important role in the development of infrastructure in numerous ways.

Concrete has three basic ingredients that are aggregate, cement, and water.

The role of each ingredient in concrete is different, cement binds the ingredients together, and water gives the concrete viscosity due to which it can be molded in the required shape.

The reaction between the three ingredients gives high strength to the concrete.

Concrete is popular because, except cement, all other ingredients of concrete are easily available like different admixtures, aggregate, and water.

Concretes popularity has resulted in several developments and innovations.

In the beginning, engineers were struggling to develop a normal concrete, but today they can produce concrete with new characteristics like lightweight, high-performance concrete, ready mixed concrete and self-compacting concrete, etc.

Earlier, only Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) was used in forming the concrete, but nowadays, concrete is formed using different pozzolanic material, like fly ash, silica fume, volcanic ash and slag along with cement in concrete.

Moreover, nowadays, along with conventional ingredients of concrete-like cement, aggregate, and water, different important admixtures are also used to give concrete required strength and durability essential for a particular application.

Large progress in the development of the concrete possible because of the unprecedented acceptance of concrete as an ideal building construction material.

A good concrete show both high compressive strength and durability.

Durability is a types of long term guarantee of the serviceability of the concrete in masonry structure without degradation in compressive strength.

Building and structure, service life depends upon the durability which is directly or indirectly controlled by factors like, water-cement (w/c) ratio, compaction and curing time, etc.

For increasing the durability of concrete, the use of blended cement in place of normal OPC has been started.

This blended cement is formed by mixing different admixtures like slag, metakaolin fly-ash and silica fumes to the OPC.

It increases both the compressive strength and durability of the concrete.

Also, read: Types of Brick in Brick Masonry English Bond & Flemish Bond

Types of Concrete.

Concrete is formed using a mixed design of the desired workability and durability. In concrete formation, several factors are taken into account as the cost of different additives, aggregates, and types of cement, etc. Broadly concrete can be dived into three important types that are:

Lime Concrete 

Cement Concrete

Polymer Concrete  

Mortar Vs Concrete