Cinder Block
In the United States, a concrete masonry unit (CMU) – also called concrete block, cement block, and foundation block – is a large rectangular brick used in construction. Concrete blocks are made from cast concrete, i.e. Portland cement and aggregate, usually sand and fine gravel for high-density blocks. Lower density blocks may use industrial wastes as an aggregate. Those that use cinders (fly ash or bottom ash) are called cinder blocks in Canada, the US and New Zealand, breeze blocks (breeze is a synonym of ash) in the UK, hollow blocks in the Philippines and are also known as besser blocks or bricks in Australia. Clinker blocks use clinker as aggregate. In non-technical usage, the terms cinder block and breeze block are often generalized to cover all of these varieties. Lightweight blocks can also be produced using aerated concrete.
Read more about Cinder Block: Sizes and Structure, Uses, Structural Properties, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words cinder and/or block:
“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
“Dug from the tomb of taste-refining time,
Each form is exquisite, each block sublime.
Or good, or bad,—disfigur’d, or deprav’d,—
All art, is at its resurrection sav’d;
All crown’d with glory in the critic’s heav’n,
Each merit magnified, each fault forgiven.”
—Martin Archer, Sir Shee (1769–1850)