Abstract
Concrete is the most commonly used construction material because of its various advantages, such as versatility, familiarity, strength, and durability, and it will continue to be in demand far into the future. However, with today’s sensitivity to environmental protection, this material faces unprecedented challenges because of its high greenhouse gas emissions, mainly during cement production. This paper investigates one of the promising cement replacement materials, alkali-activated cement (AAC) concrete. Being produced mainly from byproduct materials and having a comparable structural performance to conventional concrete, AAC concrete can transform the construction industry. Mechanical properties such as compressive and flexural strength and the relationship between them are studied. Different source materials such as fly ash (FA), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), silica fume (SF), and Metakaolin (MK) are used. The effect of the source materials and the activator solutions on the concrete performance is studied. Furthermore, the freeze-thaw resistance of the concrete is studied. The study results showed that the behavior of AAC depends highly on the source material combinations and type used. The effect of the alkaline solution is also dependent on the source material used. Mixes with higher GGBS content showed the highest strength, while mixes with MK showed the highest flexural strength. The freeze-thaw test results showed that proper design of AAC concrete with lower water content is critical to achieving a good resistance.
Highlights
Concrete is the most commonly used construction material, and because of its versatility, familiarity, strength, durability, and more, it will continue to be in demand far into the future
The water content and the alkaline to binder ratios were varied in addition to the source materials and the type of source materials
The influence of source material and alkaline content is investigated in detail
Summary
Concrete is the most commonly used construction material, and because of its versatility, familiarity, strength, durability, and more, it will continue to be in demand far into the future. Samson et al [19] performed a detailed investigation on the setting time, mass loss, shrinkage, and compressive strength of ambient-cured AACs with blended binder systems Their results showed that MKGGBS-blended source materials result in high early strength, and the association of MK and GGBS in the right proportion enables to reduce shrinkage significantly. For understanding the potential of blended binder systems cured at ambient temperature, a research program was initiated at the Structural Concrete Institute to study the effect of combinations of FA, GGBS, MK, SF, and RHA. Both mechanical performance and durability aspects of the AAC concrete are studied.
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