A Study on Compressive Behavior of Ternary Blended Concrete Incorporating Alccofine

What is it about?

Cement-based substances have been the most essential construction materials for many decades now and they are likely to continue to enjoy this kind of an importance in the distant future too. Many waste materials like Fly Ash (FA), Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS), Rice Husk Ash (RHA), Limestone Fines and Alccofine have been shown to exhibit pozzalonic properties; thus they have been used as alternative cementitious substances. They can be mixed either directly to cement or at the concrete mixer. Such cementitious substances for concrete should be fine mineral powders; further, when they are mixed with water, they should react chemically to shape as rigid mass to make concrete. This paper presents an experimental study on the use of Alccofine and GGBS independently in concrete mixes (binary blended concrete) as well as in combination (ternary blended concrete) and the study of the compressive strength of these concrete mixes. These materials had revealed an exceptional characteristic in enhancing the performance of concrete both in the fresh and the hardened stages due to their optimized particle size distribution.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Making concrete industry sustainable in the present scenario is very important, so as to reduce its adverse effects on environment. While choosing raw materials for construction it is necessary to go with eco-friendly materials. Alccofine (Ultra fine form of slag) which are by-product from steel industry possess cementitious properties can be used as replacement of cement, which are causing a lot of environmental pollution. Initially, concrete mixes of M30 grade - with replacement of cement by 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of GGBS were prepared. They were subjected to compression test so as to select the optimum replacement percentage of GGBS. Keeping this optimum percentage of GGBS as constant, further replacement of cement with Alccofine was done varying its replacement in the range of 8%, 10%, 12% and 14%. The property such as compressive strength of these mixes was computed for 7, 14 and 28 days. whereas their compressive strength values were found to be less than that of the conventional concrete mixes. This goes to prove that the combination of GGBS and Alccofine as replacement for cement would not be useful in the formation of TBC, and hence alternative materials need to be sought for.