Optimizing the design of sintered fly ash light weight concrete by Taguchi and ANOVA analysis

Abstract

The unutilized fly ash disposal to landfills is a severe threat to the environment. It deteriorates surface and groundwater quality which seriously affects the health of surrounding people. The present study develops lightweight concrete (LWC) with sintered fly ash aggregates (SFA) and does experimental and statistical analysis. For this purpose, LWC with different proportions of coarser and finer aggregates (80:20, 50:50, and 20:80), a saturation of SFA done with presoaking for 30 minutes in 11%,14%, 16% water and time of vibration 15 s, 30 s, and 45 s were taken into consideration while making LWC. The compressive strength, density, and segregation index were calculated for the specimen. Taguchi orthogonal array L9 was used to find the optimum value of each parameter. The statistical analysis by the Taguchi method indicates presoaked with 14% of water, 80:20 proportion of coarser and finer SFA and 30 s compaction is giving optimum results. The presoaked parameter is found to be the most influential among all on the basis of ANOVA analysis.