Soil-based foamed concrete is a novel lightweight construction
material consisting of Portland cement, soil, water and foaming
agent. Although the foamed concrete is not used as load-bearing
wall material, it is necessary to improve the strength of soil-based
foamed concrete without thermal insulation performance degradation.
Generally, fly ash, silica fume and fibres are often added into
the mixture to customise the mechanical properties of foamed concrete
[8–10]. Fly ash has been used in concentrations of 30–70 wt%
[8] and silica fume (up to 10 wt% by weight of cement) has been
added to intensify the cement strength [10].