Preliminary study on influence of silica fume on mechanical properties of no-cement mortars

Abstract

Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) is widely used as a binder material for various construction application and has been increasing in demand especially in developing countries. However, growing concern about the effect of OPC towards the environment either during production or transportation process captures the researcher’s interest to come out with more sustainable binder material that has similar characteristic as OPC. This paper prescribed the study on the strength performance of no-cement mortar consist of waste materials such as ground granulated blast furnace slag, fly ash and rice husk ash partially replaced with silica fume up until 20% of total binder weight. Eleven different mix designs were fabricated with constant 0.5 water/binder ratio cured under ambient temperature. The mortar specimens of 40 x 40 x 160 mm prisms were prepared and test for their flexural and compressive strength at aged 7, 14 and 28 days after curing. Laboratory tested on strength performance studies indicate that different curing ages exhibit different silica fume replacement level to achieve their optimum strength. Maximum compressive strength achieved at 28 days is 27 MPa at 12% silica fume replacement level.