INVESTIGATION OF COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF PAVEMENT CONCRETE BY THE TAGUCHI METHOD

Abstract

In this study, the Taguchi method, a powerful tool to design optimization for quality, is used to determine the optimal conditions for concrete pavement with fly ash and silica fume. An orthogonal array (Lwith four factors with four levels each), the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) are employed to investigate the compressive strength. 0.30, 0.35, 0.40 and 0.45 water/binder ratios, four different types of gradation with maximum aggregate size of 32mm, 0, 5, 10 and 15% fly ash and 0, 10, 20 and 30% silica fume replacement by weight of cement are the levels of factors. According to the results of ANOVA, water/binder ratio and type of gradation plays significant role for compressive strength of concrete pavement. In addition, the optimum conditions were found to be 0.30 water/binder ratio, Type IV gradation (70% coarse aggregate, 30% fine aggregate), 5% FA content and 10% SF content. Maximum compressive strength of 66.83 MPa was achieved at the optimum conditions.