The improvement of mechanical, physical and durability characteristics of volcanic tuff based geopolymer concrete by using nano silica, micro silica and Styrene-Butadiene Latex additives at different ratios

Abstract

This study aims to the improvement of volcanic tuff-based geopolymer concrete (GPC) with the addition of nano silica (NS), micro silica (MS) and Styrene-Butadiene Latex (SBL) at the different ratios. For this purpose, incorporating of volcanic tuff with NS (1, 2, 3%), MS (1, 3, 5%) and SBL (5, 10, 15%) was provided. GPC samples were produced with two different activation method (Na2SiO3 + NaOH and sole NaOH). 28-day compressive strength, freeze-thaw (FT) resistance, microstructure, water absorption, density, bulk density and apparent porosity values of volcanic tuff-based GPC samples were investigated. The results indicated that the compressive strength of NaOH-activated samples was much higher than similar ones activated with Na2SiO3 + NaOH. In both activation methods, the optimum NS and SBL ratios were determined as 2% and 5%, respectively. Also, the optimum additive of MS ratio was determined 5% and 3% for Na2SiO3 + NaOH and sole NaOH-activated samples, respectively. As well as the highest compressive strength losses as a result of 300 FT cycles were observed in pure samples for both activation methods, Na2SiO3 + NaOH-activated samples exhibited better resistance to FT effect than similar ones activated with sole NaOH.