Abstract
This study investigated the effects of the addition of untreated sugarcane bagasse ash (UtSCBA) on the microstructural and mechanical properties of mortars. The SCBA was sieved for only five minutes through a No. 200 ASTM mesh, and fully characterized by chemical composition analysis, laser ray diffraction, the physical absorption of gas, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. Mortar mixtures with 0, 10 and 20% UtSCBA as cement replacement and a constant 0.63 water/cementitious material ratio were prepared. Fresh properties of the mortars were obtained. The microstructural characteristics of the mortars at 1, 7, 28, 90 and 600 days were evaluated by SEM and XRD. The compressive strengths of the mortars at the same ages were then obtained. The results show that the addition of 10 and 20% UtSCBA caused a slight decrease in workability of the mortars but improved their microstructure, increasing the long-term compressive strength.
Highlights
This study investigated the effects of the addition of untreated sugarcane bagasse ash (UtSCBA) on the microstructural and mechanical properties of mortars
Chemical analysis of the selected UtSCBA (Table 2) shows that the sum of major oxides (SiO2 + Al2O3 + Fe2O3 = 76%) is slightly larger than 70% of the overall material composition (ASTM C 618); this result along with the strength activity indexes (SAI) estimate corroborates the pozzolanic activity of the UtSCBA despite the high loss on ignition (LOI) content
The results indicate that UtSCBA has larger size particles when compared to CPC
Summary
The SCBA was collected from a sugar mill located in the community of Tezonapa, Veracruz, México. This ash is generated as a combustion by-product of sugarcane bagasse at temperatures between 550 and 700oC and recovered by sprinkling water during the sugar production. The second post-treatment consisted of sieving through the same sieves for the same period of time followed by two hours of grinding (SCBA8g, SCBA100g and SCBA200g). A water/cementitious material ratio of 0.56 was used for the mortar containing 20% FA to keep the same sand/cement ratio and as well fulfill the mortars’ flow requirements. The influence of untreated sugarcane bagasse ash on the microstructural and mechanical properties of mortars 3
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