Strength and durability studies of SCC incorporating silica fume and ultra fine GGBS

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The cost associated with the application of large volume of cement and synthetic admixtures was one of the major drawbacks of Self Compacting Concrete (SCC), which can be reduced by the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM). When the demand of cement reduces, the release of Carbon dioxide (CO2) from cement industries will come down, which has a positive impact on global warming. The present paper reports an attempt in this direction by experimental examination on the fresh and mechanical properties of SCC by replacing cement with SCM such as silica fume and ultra-fine Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS) in varying ratios. SCC mix was obtained by fixing the water-binder ratio and changing super plasticizer (SP) dosage with respect to total cementitious content. Along with the mechanical properties, SCC mixes incorporating both alccofine and silica fume at 10% which gave the best strength were selected to assess the durability issues. Incorporating 10% silica fume gave the best result in both mechanical and durability studies in comparison with other combinations. The determination of the optimum mix containing both silica and alccofine was carried out by a statistical approach using Design of Experiments (DOE). DOE results gave optimum dosage of silica fume and alccofine as 6% and 8% respectively, which also satisfied the SCC property by changing the super plasticizer dosage. Experimentally obtained mechanical properties of the combination mix were in agreement with DOE results.