Experimental Investigation on Cement Mortar Blended with HNC and CNTs’ [Hallyosite nanoclay and Carbon Nanotubes]-Taguchi’s Approach

Abstract

This research focuses on the results of experimental investigation of the compressive strength of CementMortar cubes blended with Multi walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) and Hallyosite Nanoclay (HNC’s).The percentage of MWCNTs and HNC’s was fixed to 0.5%, 0.75% and 1% by weight of cement. In thisresearch, experiments were conducted on the 3 different grades of mortar( MM-3,MM-5,MM-7.5 ) and 3different size of cube specimens (25x25x25, 50x50x50 and 75x75x75), out of which 50mm cube is the sizeas per IS 2250-1981 and remaining two (25 mm and 75mm) are trial mixes. Casted specimens were testedon 7th, 14th and 28th day of curing. Compressive strengths obtained from these experiments are analyzedthrough Taguchi’s method of Optimization and ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) with the help of Commercialsoftware MINITAB-16. Statistical Analysis is conducted to find the interaction of the factors and their effecton strength of mortar. Regression analyses are employed to obtain the optimal process parameters. Out of0.5%, 0.75%and 1% of HNC added to the conventional cement mortar 0.75% resulted in OptimumCompressive Strength for 50mm size of cube specimen as per experiments and Regression Analysis. Also, itis observed that when MWCNTs are mixed, compressive strength increases as percentage increases