Abstract
In the present investigation, the physical, mechanical and durability properties of six concrete mixtures were evaluated, one of conventional concrete (CC) with 100% Portland cement (PC) and five mixtures of Ecofriendly Ternary Concrete (ETC) made with partial replacement of Portland Cement by combinations of sugar cane bagasse ash (SCBA) and silica fume (SF) at percentages of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%. The physical properties of slump, temperature, and unit weight were determined, as well as compressive strength, rebound number, and electrical resistivity as a durability parameter. All tests were carried out according to the ASTM and ONNCCE standards. The obtained results show that the physical properties of ETC concretes are very similar to those of conventional concrete, complying with the corresponding regulations. Compressive strength results of all ETC mixtures showed favorable performances, increasing with aging, presenting values similar to CC at 90 days and greater values at 180 days in the ETC-20 and ETC-30 mixtures. Electrical resistivity results indicated that the five ETC mixtures performed better than conventional concrete throughout the entire monitoring period, increasing in durability almost proportionally to the percentage of substitution of Portland cement by the SCBA–SF combination; the ETC mixture made with 40% replacement had the highest resistivity value, which represents the longest durability. The present electrical resistivity indicates that the durability of the five ETC concretes was greater than conventional concrete. The results show that it is feasible to use ETC, because it meets the standards of quality, mechanical resistance and durability, and offers a very significant and beneficial contribution to the environment due to the use of agro-industrial and industrial waste as partial substitutes up to 50% of CPC, which contributes to reduction in CO2 emissions due to the production of Portland cement, responsible for 8% of total emissions worldwide.
Highlights
Concrete is the most widely used construction material worldwide, due to its great mechanical and physical properties, with a demand that grows every year due to the need for the development of civil infrastructure across all countries in the world [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
These materials are industrial wastes, of which Fly ash is a waste material in the power generation industry, and reusing this highly active pozzolan in the construction industry may bring about several advantages [18]; silica fume (SF) is a byproduct from the production of silicon alloys such as ferro-chromium, ferro-manganese, calcium silicon, etc., which creates environmental pollution and health hazards [19]; blast furnace slag is a waste product of the steel manufacturing process [20]; and among agro-industrial wastes, the most used as alternative materials to Portland cement are rice husk ash [21] and sugar cane bagasse ash (SCBA) [22,23,24]
Anandan et al determined that the mechanical properties of processed fly ash based concrete with 50% OPC replacement had equal or better strength gain at later ages than unprocessed fly ash based concrete with 25% OPC replacement [26], and in another research work it was shown that binary concretes with 20% fly ash reinforced with AISI 304 Steel presented a higher corrosion resistance than AISI 1018 steel when exposed to a simulated marine environment [27]
Summary
Concrete is the most widely used construction material worldwide, due to its great mechanical and physical properties, with a demand that grows every year due to the need for the development of civil infrastructure across all countries in the world [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Even though concrete is durable, it is compromised when exposed to aggressive media where chloride and sulfate ions may be present, which are considered to be the main responsible agents for the premature deterioration of reinforced concrete structures, in which the main problem is the corrosion of reinforcing steel [9,10,11,12,13,14] This compromises sustainable development by not complying with the useful lifetime for which the structures were designed; it is known that the manufacture of Portland cement, the main component for the development of concrete, is responsible for around 5 to 8% of total CO2 emissions worldwide [15,16,17]. Castaldelli et al evaluated different BFS/SCBA mixtures, replacing part of the BFS with SCBA from 0 to 40% by weight; the results of the mechanical resistance values were approximately 60 MPa of compressive strength for BFS/SCBA systems after 270 days of curing at 20 ◦C This demonstrated that sugar cane bagasse ash is an interesting source for preparing alkali-activated binders [35]. Compressive strength tests were carried out as well as rebound number tests, and for the durability parameter of all the study mixtures, the electrical resistivity was determined
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