Mortar is made by adding water to a mixture of sand and cement. The cement absorbs the water and the cement then hydrates. The wet cement sets slowly and the hydrated cement particles keep the sand particles together – when drying is complete, you get mortar. This is used to join bricks and stones together to make walls for buildings and is then used to 'point' the wall, by filling in the spaces between the bricks on the outside of the wall.
Concrete is quite similar to mortar in that it contains sand and hydrated cement particles too, but it also contains rock chippings. This gives it far more strength than mortar and it is very hard and difficult to compress. Concrete is an example of a composite material – its properties are very different to the properties of its component parts. Concrete is used more extensively in building, not just for joining other materials together.
Concrete is quite similar to mortar in that it contains sand and hydrated cement particles too, but it also contains rock chippings. This gives it far more strength than mortar and it is very hard and difficult to compress. Concrete is an example of a composite material – its properties are very different to the properties of its component parts. Concrete is used more extensively in building, not just for joining other materials together.
