Study on sulfate resistance behaviour of granite sand as fine aggregate in concrete through material testing and XRD analysis

Abstract

Abstract To develop sustainable concrete, partial replacement of cement with silica fume, fly ash, GGBFS was attempted in addition to the replacement of river sand with granite sand at the proportions of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. The investigation leads to the breakthrough of ideal Sulfate resisting concrete with optimal design mix consisting Granite sand 25% + river sand 75% + partial replacement of cement by 7.5% silica fume + 10% fly ash + 10% GGBFS. The analysis results with the Sulfate resistance through only a 12.2% reduction in the tested compressive strength for the optimum design. All other design mix considered for the study indicated with lesser Sulfate resistance varying from 13.2 to 17.1% of reduction in compressive strength. Conventional river sand with admixtures leads to decline in compressive strength from 40 to 33 N/mm2 however the optimum design mix as identified in the study resulted with the higher sulfate resistance. It is estimated that 2% total cost savings were achieved for the identified optimal design mix for the 1 m3 of conventional concrete. Total cost savings of 2% were achieved for the identified optimal design mix for the 1 m3 of conventional concrete based on the estimation. The goodness of fit using Chi-Square analysis has been carried out for the developed regression equation towards estimating the compressive strength for various design mixes resulted in a value of 0.82.