Strength Evaluation of High Strength Concrete by Using Fly Ash and Silica Fume as A Partial Replacement of Cement

Abstract

Presently large amounts of fly ash are generated in thermal industries with an important impact on environment as well as humans. In recent years, many researchers have established that the use of supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash (FA), GGBS, blast furnace slag, silica fume, metakaolin, and rice husk ash, hypo sludge etc. can, not only improve the various properties of concrete, but also can contribute to economy in construction costs. This research work describes the feasibility of using Fly ash and Silica Fume as partial replacement of cement. The cement has been replaced by fly ash accordingly in the range of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, and 60% by weight of cement and 10% of silica fume in common for M30 grade of Concrete. Concrete mixtures produced, tested and compared in terms of compressive strength and split tensile strength with the conventional concrete for 7, and 28 days. It is found that, 30% of fly ash and 10% of silica fume can be replaced and good strength obtained is comparable to the conventional concrete mix.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Concrete is the secondary most widely used material after water and over six milliard tons of concrete is produced each year. Concrete is specific to separate approach like new construction, repair, rehabilitation and retrofitting. Concrete building components in separate sizes and shapes include wall panels, doorsills, beams, pillars and more. Post-tensioned slabs are a select method for industrial, commercial and residential floor slab construction. It makes sense to order the uses of concrete on the basis of where and how it is manufacture, together with its techniques of application, since these have different requirements and properties.

Concrete’s versatility, durability, supportable, and economy have made it the world’s most widely used construction material. About four tons of concrete are manufacture per person per year worldwide and about 1.7 tons per person in the United States. The term concrete mentioned to a mixture of aggregates, usually sand, and either gravel or crushed stone, held together by a binder of cementitious paste.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Krishan Kumar, et al (2019) in this investigation experimental program was carried out to study the utilization of fly ash for enhancement in properties of materials and technology. Cement content is replaced by fly ash according to the range of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% by weight of cement for M35 design mix with 0.43 water cement ratio and analyzed on different parameters. The experimental results show that the use of 30% fly ash and 70% of cement provides a good performance in terms of compressive strength when compared with the cement having no fly ash content.

Vallabuni, Sandeep, et al (2018) this paper attempts the investigation on the use of fly ash in cement concrete industries. In developed countries use of mineral admixtures such as fly ash and silica fume and rise husk ash etc., has already adopted in making concrete. An investigation was undertaken to study the effects of fly ash in concrete. Cement replacement levels by fly ash were 0, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 percent are proposed for analysis in this project work. As quality criteria, Compressive strengths of cubes at the ages of 3, 7, and 28, days were determined as per the normal Code practices. The results are presented in the relevant tables and graphs. The performance of the designed mixes using fly ash content is good enough and the results are presented for kind recommendation to the various cement concrete industries.

Soma Gorai (2017) studied that industrial waste creates significant environmental problems when released into the atmosphere. In the past, vast majority of the material generated each year was held in ash dams or similar dumps but in recent years a number of technologies have been developed for the beneficial utilization of fly ash in different fields.

The utilization of fly ash in construction, mine back fill, road sub-base, agricultural field, paints, wood substitute composites and also as a low-cost adsorbent for the removal of organic compounds.

Yadav et al (2017) this experiment study is aimed to investigate the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of fly ash cement concrete for road construction. From research, it has been observed that the use of 30% of fly ash and 70% of cement possess a superior performance. Moreover, in construction, the use of fly ash would result in the reduction of the cost of materials and the reduction of greenhouse gas emission.

High strength of concrete can be prepared and the incorporation of admixture or substitute to improve the properties of concrete. Test result of specimens indicates the bonding strength of properties, workability, and different reaction when the water ratio a change its content.

Slump test having an appropriate workable mixing the slump of a concrete, gave sufficient compressive strength.

Dr.S.Sundararaman1, et al (2016) studied that feasibility of using the thermal industry waste in concrete production as partial replacement of cement.

Fly ash and silica fume can be used as filler and helps to reduce the total voids content in concrete. The cement has been replaced by fly ash accordingly in the range of 0%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%, 55% and 60% by weight of cement and 10% of silica fume in common for M30 mix. Concrete mixtures produced, tested and compared in terms of compressive and split tensile strength with the conventional concrete for 3, 7, 28 days.

It is found that, 50% of fly ash and 10% of silica fume can be replaced and strength obtained is comparable to the conventional concrete.

Chatterjee, et al (2011) reported that about 50 % of fly ash generated is utilized with present efforts. He also reported that, one may achieve up to 70% replacement of cement with fly ash when high strength cement and very high reactive fly ash is used along with the sulphonated naphthalene formaldehyde super plasticizer. He reported improvement in fly ash property could be achieved by grinding and getting particles in sub microcrystalline range.

Namagg et al (2009) described early stages of a project to study the use of large volumes of high lime fly ash in concrete. Authors used fly ash for partial replacement of cement and fine aggregates. Replacement percent from 0% to 50% was tested in their study. They reported that concrete with 25% to 35% fly ash provided the most optimal results for its compressive strength. They concluded that this was due to the pozzolanic action of high lime fly ash.

III. MATERIAL AND EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY

A. Cement

The Ordinary Portland cement of 43-grade was used in this study conforming to IS: 12269-1987. The specific gravity of cement is 3.15. The initial and final setting times were found as 35 minutes and 178 minutes respectively. Standard consistency of cement was 30.5%

B. Fine Aggregate

The river sand is used as fine aggregate conforming to the requirements of IS: 383-1970, having specific gravity of 2.62 and fineness modulus of 2.86 has been used as fine aggregate for this study. Fineness modulus of above fine aggregate is 2.82, which indicate that it is medium Sand.

C. Coarse Aggregate

Coarse aggregate is stone which are broken into small sizes and irregular in shape. Aggregate which has a size bigger than 4.75 mm or which retrained on 4.75 mm IS Sieve are known as coarse aggregate.

The coarse aggregate was locally available having size passing through 20mm sieve and its fineness modulus was 2.89, specific gravity and water absorption of coarse aggregate was 0.8 and 2.62 respectively.

D. Fly Ash (FA)

Fly ash is produced from burning of coal in thermal power stations. It is the lighter material and collected either by mechanical or by electrostatic precipitator.Fly ash is a fine gray powder include mostly of spherical, glassy particles that are produced as a byproduct in coal-fired power stations. Fly ash acts with lime to form cementitious compounds. It is commonly known as additional cementitious material.

Table 3.4.1: Physical properties of fly ash

E. Silica Fume (SF)

Silica fume (SF) is a derivative of the smelting process in the silicon and ferrosilicon industry. The by-product of the production of ferrosilicon alloy having 50% silicon has much lower silica content and is less pozzolanic. Therefore, SiO2 content of the silica fume is related to the type of alloy being produced. Silica fume has been acknowledged as a pozzolanic admixture that is effective in increasing the mechanical properties to a great extent. Silica Fume was obtained from Elkem India (P) Ltd., Indore conforming to ASTM C 1240 as mineral admixture in dry densified form. The specific gravity of silica fume is 2.2.It consists of 0.1 to 1 micron sized fine, smooth spherical glassy particles with fineness of 20m²/gm conforming to ASTM C1240-1999 standards.

F. Water

Potable water used for casting specimens according to IS: 456-2000. Tap water of Base Camp was used for casting the specimens. The temperature of water at the time casting was approximate 270c.

G. Experimental Methodology

 Mix Proportions

In this study, control mix specimen was designed as per IS: 10262:2009 to achieve M30 (1:1.173:2.418) grade of concrete mixes of different Fly ash levels (0% to 60% replacement of cement) and silica fume of 10% with w/c ratio of 0.45 were prepared. A total of 27 concrete cubes and 27 cylinders were casted for the different percentages of replacement of cement with fly ash and Silica Fume. The specimens were demoulded after 24 hours and curing was done for different age of testing. After that the test results were obtained at 7 and 28 days

Table 3.7.1: Details of Mix Proportion of M30 Grade of Concrete

IV. RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

A. Compressive Strength Test Result

The compressive strength of concrete cube was determined based on IS: 516-1959(2). The specimen was placed in the compressive testing machine in such a manner that the load applied should be to the opposite sides of the cubes as cast, that is not to the top and bottom. The compressive strength test is conducted in the compressive testing machine of 2000kN capacity. The specimen used was 150 mm x 150 mm x 150 mm cube. The test result was performed at 7 & 28 days. The following figure and table shows the compressive strength of cube and figure shows the compressive strength results after 7 Days.

Table 4.1: Compressive strength of cubes 7 and 28 Days (N/mm2)

Conclusion

The experimental work on the partial replacement of cement with fly ash and Silica Fume in the M30 grade of concrete with different replacement levels such as 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% and 60% of cement with Fly ash and 10% Silica Fume with Cement. The compressive strength graph shows that as the fly ash content increases the compressive strength also increases up to 20 to 30% and above 30%, it decreases. Based on the experimental work the percentage of fly ash replaced to cement with varying percentage from 10% to 60% and 10 % Silica Fume replaced to cement the following results were drawn. 1) With 10% of fly ash the compressive strength at the end of 7 and 28 days 31.57 and 35.87 N/mm2 respectively. 2) A similar increase in the compressive strength was observed when the fly ash is increase till 30% (40.79N/mm2 at 28 days). 3) The compressive strength at the end of 28 days decreases when the fly ash percentage is increased upto 30%. However the compressive strength of M30 concrete at the end of 28 days for 50% replacement of fly ash is 33.45 N/mm2 4) The compressive strength showed a steep decrease when the fly ash percentage is increased beyond 50% 5) With 10% of fly ash the split tensile strength at the end of 7 and 28 days 15.25 and 18.25 N/mm2 respectively. 6) A similar increase in the split tensile strength was observed when the fly ash is increase till 30% (15.05 N/mm2 at 28 days). 7) The split tensile strength at the end of 28 days decreases when the fly ash percentage is increased beyond 30%. However the split tensile strength of M30 concrete at the end of 28 days for 50% replacement of fly ash is 10.49 N/mm2

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Copyright © 2022 Piyush Kumar. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.