Effect of high volume tile ceramic wastes on resistance of geopolymer mortars to abrasion and freezing-thawing cycles: Experimental and deep learning modelling

Abstract

Utilizing industrial and agriculture waste materials to produce a green and sustainable mortar have widely investigated and assessed based on the mechanical and durability properties. Herein, the abrasion and freezing-thawing resistance of fly ash (FA)-ground blast furnace slag (GBFS) based geopolymer mortars incorporating high content of tile ceramic wastes (TCWs) have been evaluated experimentally and mathematically using artificial neural network (ANN). A relatively dilute (4 M) alkaline solution was used to activate the ternary blend. The TCWs was maintained as a relatively large percentage of the total binder, i.e. 50%, 60% and 70%. Once the casting process was complete, curing of the samples was performed at 27 °C. These then underwent testing at day 1, day 3, day 7 and day 28 to provide durability data for various specimen ages. Tests encompassed exposure to abrasion, ability to withstand cyclic freeze-thawing and wet-drying, and permeability to water. Investigations to establish the impact of the high TCWs proportion on the generation of sodium aluminium, calcium aluminium and calcium silicate hydrate (N, C-A-S-H) gels, respectively, included X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The large percentage of TCWs (70%) generated GPMs that had a minimal effect on the environment and which, by day 28, evidenced a compressive strength above 35 MPa. Augmenting the GBFS and FA content promoted the capacity to withstand freeze-thawing cycles and enhanced durability. Improved performance was also observed in scenarios associated with abrasion resistance. In addition, the proposed models proved their accuracy in which MSE, MAPE, SI were less than 1.93, while R2 of greater than 0.9 confirmed the closeness between predicted and actual results. Substitution of TCWs and FA for GBFS additionally reduced landfill problems of ceramic wastes and achieved the sustainability aims.