Abstract
This paper investigated the initial surface absorption (ISAT) of concrete using Portland cement (PC) and some binary and ternary cement combinations containing fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF) and metakaolin (MK) as partial replacements for PC at equal water/ cement ratios and strengths. At equal water/cement ratios, the cement combination concretes have higher ISAT values than PC concrete at 28 days and the disparity reduced with increasing curing age due to improved pozzolanic reactivity of the supplementary cementitious materials. SF and MK as binary and ternary cement components performed better than FA due to their higher fineness, improved particle packing and higher pozzolanic reactivity. At equal strengths, FA binary cement concretes have the lowest ISAT values and these reduced with increasing content of FA. At total replacement levels more than 20%, all the ternary cement concretes have lower ISAT values than PC concrete and the values reduced with increasing total replacement level due to the beneficial effect of FA.
Highlights
Cement combinations could be used to produce durable concretes at reduced cost and environmental impact than the conventional Portland cement (PC)concrete [1]
The Figures show that initial surface absorption (ISAT) 10 increased with increasing water/cement ratio and reduced with increasing curing age
Compared with PC, all the fly ash (FA) binary cement concretes have lower initial surface absorption after 10 minutes (ISAT 10) values at equal strengths and these values decreased with increasing content of FA
Summary
Cement combinations could be used to produce durable concretes at reduced cost and environmental impact than the conventional Portland cement (PC). SF and MK particles are characterized by high fineness, close packing and high hydration reaction and would improve the strength and permeation resistance of concrete [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13] They are costly and their use would result in workability problems [14,15,16,17,18]. To provide more information on the permeation resistance and support the use of cement combination concrete, this paper investigated the initial surface absorption of concretes containing PC, FA, SF, and MK. Compressive strength was determined in accordance with BS EN 12390- 3 [38] using 100 mm cubes at the curing age of 28 days at the water/cement ratios of 0.35, 0.50 and 0.65.
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