Improving the mechanical strength of concrete using low mass of nano-reinforcements

Abstract

Deployment of nanoscale particles in the building materials has now become one of the most significant subjects in the building technology. Nanoparticle infused cementitious materials have recently been a prominent research domain. The use of nanoparticles has been predicted to improve the mechanical characteristics of the cementitious materials. Through the substitution of the nano-alumina at varying low mass proportion within the cementitious material, the effect of such nanoparticle on the mechanical characteristics of concrete mixture has been examined in this research work. In M20 concrete mixture design, nano-alumina has been utilized as a supplementary cementitious material in the mass fraction of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0%. These prepared nano-alumina based concrete (nano-alumina/concrete) has been used to fabricate the samples. After the curation period of one week and four weeks, the lab experiments had been undertaken to measure the compression, split tensile, and flexural characteristics of the nano-alumina/concrete samples. It was confirmed that the use of nano-alumina particles in the cementitious materials increased their mechanical strength, significantly. The compression, split-tensile and flexural characteristics of the concrete had been improved by 31.16%, 60.7% and 17.72%, respectively after one week curing time, when 3 percent nano-alumina was used as the cement substitute. However, the mechanical properties of nano-alumina/concrete had been reduced when more than 3% nano-alumina was deployed as the supplementing material for the cementitious material.