The Role of Water Content and Paste Proportion on Physico-mechanical Properties of Alkali Activated Fly Ash–Ggbs Concrete

Raffaele Vinai, Ali Rafeet, Marios Soutsos, Wei Sha

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    26 Citations (Scopus)
    361 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    The growth of the construction industry worldwide poses a serious concern on the sustainability of the building material production chain, mainly due to the carbon emissions related to the production of Portland cement. On the other hand, valuable materials from waste streams, particularly from the metallurgical industry, are not used at their full potential. Alkali activated concrete (AAC) has emerged in the last years as a promising alternative to traditional Portland cement based concrete for some applications. However, despite showing remarkable strength and durability potential, its utilisation is not widespread, mainly due to the lack of broadly accepted standards for the selection of suitable mix recipes fulfilling design requirements, in particular workability, setting time and strength. In this paper, a contribution towards the design development of AAC synthetized from pulverised fuel ash (60%) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (40%) activated with a solution of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate is proposed. Results from a first batch of mixes indicated that water content influences the setting time and that paste content is a key parameter for controlling strength development and workability. The investigation indicated that, for the given raw materials and activator compositions, a minimum water to solid (w/s) ratio of 0.37 was needed for an initial setting time of about 1 hour. Further work with paste content in the range of 30% to 33% determined the relationship between workability and strength development and w/s ratio and paste content. Strengths in the range of 50 - 60 MPa were achieved.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)51-61
    Number of pages11
    Journal Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy
    Volume2
    Issue number1
    Early online date23 Oct 2015
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar 2016

    Keywords

    • alkali activated concrete
    • mix design
    • setting time
    • slag valorisation
    • activated slag

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The Role of Water Content and Paste Proportion on Physico-mechanical Properties of Alkali Activated Fly Ash–Ggbs Concrete'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this