The paper deals with the production of lightweight gypsum composites by means of a vegetal protein foaming agent. Two manufacturing methods, which basically differ in the physical state of the foaming agent used, have been proposed and the relative experimental results have been compared and discussed. The gypsum foam samples have been characterized from several points of view (physical, mechanical and microstructural). Thermal and acoustic properties and also porosity have been investigated in order to evaluate the insulation features of the lightweight gypsum composites. The addition of foaming agent strongly affected the mechanical performance of all the samples and led to a significant modification of the post-cracking behavior. Differences observed in the morphology and porosity, related to the two manufacturing methods, are due to the method of pore-formation, especially to the different amounts of air insufflated within the gypsum pastes which influence, in addition to the porosity, the final microstructure and consequently the insulation performances of the gypsum foams. In fact, the more porous samples, obtained from the addition of the liquid foaming agent, showed both the lower values of thermal conductivity and the better values of sound absorption coefficient, leading to a final lightweight products characterized by improved insulation properties.

中文翻译：

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使用植物蛋白作为发泡剂生产轻质石膏

该论文涉及通过植物蛋白发泡剂生产轻质石膏复合材料。提出了两种制造方法，它们在所用发泡剂的物理状态上存在根本差异，并比较和讨论了相关的实验结果。石膏泡沫样品已经从几个角度（物理、机械和微观结构）进行了表征。为了评估轻质石膏复合材料的绝缘特性，已经研究了热学和声学特性以及孔隙率。发泡剂的加入强烈影响了所有样品的机械性能，并导致后裂行为的显着改变。在形态和孔隙率方面观察到的差异，与两种制造方法有关，这是由于孔隙形成方法，特别是由于在石膏糊中注入的空气量不同，除了孔隙率外，还会影响最终的微观结构，从而影响石膏泡沫的绝缘性能。事实上，通过添加液体发泡剂获得的更多孔样品显示出较低的热导率值和更好的吸声系数值，从而导致最终的轻质产品具有改善的绝缘性能。