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Volume 4, No 2, 2013
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Research article
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Combustion of fossil fuels to operate the rotary kiln is the largest source and other one is the
chemical process of calcining limestone into lime in the cement kiln also produces CO2.
Hendriks et al., carried out emission reduction of green house gases from the cement
industry. Ernest Worerell and Lynn Price etal, have reported that CO2 emission from the
global cement industry. In India about 2,069,738 thousands of metric tonnes of CO2 is
emitted in the year 2010. And also, the cement is manufactured by using the raw materials
such as lime stone, clay and other minerals. Quarrying of these raw materials is also causes
environmental degradation. To produce 1 tonne of cement, about 1.6 tonnes of raw materials
are required and the time taken to form the lime stone is much longer than the rate at which
humans use it.
On the other side the demand of concrete is increasing day by day for its ease of preparing
and fabricating in all sorts of convenient shapes. So to overcome this problem, the concrete to
be used should be environmental friendly. To produce environmental friendly concrete, it is
necessary to replace the cement with the industrial by products such as fly ash, GGBS etc.,.
Disposal of FA is a growing problem as only 15% of FA is currently used for high value
addition applications like concrete and building blocks, the remaining being used for land
filling. The FA increases the strength in case of hardened concrete. Another alternative but
promising utility of FA in construction industry that has emerged in recent years is in
Geopolymer concrete. Geopolymer technology can be appropriate process technology utilize
all classes and grades of FA and therefore there is a great potential for reducing stockpiles of
waste FA materials. The present study considers FA utilization in production of geopolymer
concrete since it can accommodate a major portion of the ash produced. GGBS is a byproduct from the blast-furnaces used to make iron. The molten slag is rapidly chilled by
quenching in water to form the sand like granulated material. GGBS is a glassy granular, non
metallic material consisting essentially of silicates and aluminates of calcium and other bases.
GGBS is also used as a binder component in geopolymer concrete.
Geopolymer concretes (GPC) are a type of Inorganic polymer composites, to form a
substantial element of an environmentally sustainable construction and building products
industry by replacing/supplementing the conventional concretes. The term geopolymer was
first introduced by Davidovits in 1970s to name the three-dimensional alumino-silicates
material, which is a binder produced from the reaction of a source material or feedstock rich
in silicon (Si) and aluminum (Al) with a concentrated alkaline solution. The source materials
may be industry waste products such as fly ash, slag, red mud, rice-husk ash and silica fume
may be used as feedstock for the synthesis of geopolymers. The alkaline liquids are
concentrated aqueous alkali hydroxide or silicate solution, with soluble alkali metals, usually
Sodium- (Na) or Potassium- (K) based. High alkaline liquids are used to induce the silicon
and aluminium atoms in the source materials to dissolve and form the geopolymeric binder.
Rajamane (2006), Ambily et.al (2011) and Ambily (2012) carried out experimental studies on
structural behavior of reinforced geopolymer concrete beams. Effect of geopolymeric binders
such as GGBS and FA by activating silicon dioxide and aluminium oxide present in the
binders, to form inorganic polymer binder system. This binder system can be used to produce
concretes containing river sand as fine aggregate and coarse aggregate in the form of either
sintered FA aggregates (SFA) or crushed granite aggregates (CGA). It was concluded that the
lightweight aggregate based geopolymer concrete have one day compressive strength of
about 35 MPa and a 28 days strength greater than 50 MPa. CGA based geopolymer concretes
produce higher compressive strength of about 45 MPa at one day and 65 MPa at 28 days.
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Experimental results (Hardijito and rangan, 2005) have shown the following, higher the ratio
of sodium silicate solution-to-sodium hydroxide solution ratio by mass, higher is the
compressive strength of geopolymer concrete. The addition of naphthalene sulphonate-based
super plasticizer, up to approximately 4% of fly ash by mass, improves the workability of the
fresh geopolymer concrete, however, there is slight degradation in the compressive strength
of hardened concrete when the super plasticizer dosage is greater than 2%.
The principal objective of the research were
1. The development of structural grade geopolymer concrete with different
combinations of FA and GGBS.
2. To study the influence of ground granulated blast furnace slag on geopolymer
concrete. The types of geopolymer concrete mixes are (i) 10% GGBS and
90%FA, (ii) 15%GGBS and 85%FA , (iii) 20% GGBS and 80% FA,(iv) 50%
GGBS and 50% FA .
3. To study the effect of concentration of alkaline activator solution in geopolymer
concrete. The molar ratios considered are 3M, 5M and 7M Sodium Hydroxide
Solutions are used.
2. Materials used
Following materials are generally used to produce GPCs:
1. Fly ash
2. GGBS
3. Fine aggregates and
4. Coarse aggregates
5. Catalytic liquid system (CLS)
2.1 Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)
OPC conforming to IS 12269(1987) (with specific gravity of 3.15), fine aggregates, coarse
aggregates and potable water were used for the control OPCC test specimens. The physical
properties of the cement used are shown in the Table 1.
2.2 Fly ash and Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS)
FA conforming to grade 1 of IS 3812 and Ground granulated blast furnace slag) confirming
to IS 12089 were used. River sand available in Chennai was used as fine aggregates. The
GPCC was obtained by mixing calculated quantities of FA and GGBS, fine aggregates,
coarse aggregates with Alkaline Activator Solution (AAS). FA obtained from Ennore
Thermal Power Station and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag) obtained from
Quality polytech, Mangalore conforming to IS 12089 were used. The physical properties of
FA and GGBS are shown in table 1 and Chemical properties in Table 2.
2.3 Aggregates
River sand available in Chennai was used as fine aggregates. They were tested as per IS 2386
standards. The specific gravity of river sand is 2.7. In this investigation locally available blue
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granite crushed stone aggregates of maximum size 12.5mm and down size were used and
characterization tests were carried out as per IS 2386. The specific gravity is 2.68.
Table 1: Properties of Cement, Fly Ash and GGBS
S. No.
Descriptions
1
2
3
Physical Properties
Fineness (Sq.m/kg)
Normal Consistency (%)
Setting Time (minutes)
a) Initial
Fly ash
OPC
GGBS
306
31
419
-
400
-
55
b) Final
100
Specific gravity
3.15
2.20
2.90
% by mass
Fly Ash
0.76
62.1
27.44
4.57
0.83
0.55
0.04
1.17
1.09
0.04
93.64
0.4
0.02
LOI
SiO2
Al2O3
Fe2O3
CaO
MgO
Na2O
K 2O
TiO2
Mn2O3
Insoluble Residue
SO3
Free Lime
Chlorides
GGBS
43.4
12.5
1.3
40.3
1.5
0.9
0.6
-
excess water can result in formation of pore network, which could be the source of low
strength and low durability
In this paper the compressive strength of geopolymer concrete is examined for the mix of
varying molarities of sodium hydroxide (3M, 5M, and 7M). The molecular weight of sodium
hydroxide is 40. To prepare 3M sodium hydroxide solution, 120g of sodium hydroxide
pellets were weighed and they more dissolved in distilled water to form 1 liter solution. After
the pellets dissolved fully in the water, then remaining water was added to make 1liter
solution. The weights of pellets added for other molarity of solutions are as given in Table-3.
Table 3: Molarity of alkaline activator solutions
Required Molarity
3M
5M
7M
3. Mix Design
The primary difference between geopolymer concrete and Portland cement concrete is the
binder. The silicon and aluminium oxides in the low-calcium flyash and GGBS reacts with
the alkaline liquid to form the geopolymer paste that binds the loose coarse aggregates, fine
aggregates, and other un-reacted materials together to form the geopolymer concrete.
As in the case of Portland cement concrete, the coarse and fine aggregates occupy about 75%
to 80% of the mass of geopolymer concrete. This component of geopolymer concrete
mixtures can be designed using the tools currently available for Portland cement concrete.
The compressive strength and the workability of geopolymer concrete are influenced by the
proportions and properties of the constituent materials that make the geopolymer paste.
The role and the influence of aggregates are considered to be the same as in the case of
Portland cement concrete. The mass of combined aggregates may be taken to be between
75% and 80% of the mass of the geopolymer concrete. The performance criteria of a
geopolymer concrete mixture depend on the application. For simplicity, the compressive
strength of hardened concrete and the workability of fresh concrete are selected as the
performance criteria. In order to meet these performance criteria, the alkaline liquid-to-fly ash
ratio by mass, water-to binder ratio by mass, water to geopolymer solids ratio by mass, the
wet-mixing time, the heat-curing temperature, and the heat-curing time are selected as
parameters.
4. Mixing and Casting of Geopolymer Concrete
Geopolymer concrete can be produced by adopting the conventional techniques used in the
manufacture of Portland puzzolana cement concrete. In the laboratory, the fly ash, GGBS and
the aggregates were mixed together dry in a pan mixer for about three minutes. The
aggregates were prepared in saturated-surface dry (SSD) condition.
The alkaline liquids used in this study for the polymerization are sodium hydroxide (NaOH)
and sodium silicate (Na2SiO3). Different molarities of sodium hydroxide solution 3M, 5M
and 7M are taken to prepare different mixtures. The sodium hydroxide is available in the
form of pellets and mixed with the distilled water and prepared alkaline solution one day
before casting. The Sodium silicate is added just before casting. The AAS is added to the dry
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materials and mixing continued for another four minutes. The fresh geopolymer concrete was
cast and compacted by the usual methods in the case of Portland cement concrete (Hardijito
and Rangan, 2006, Sumajouw and Rangan, 2006).
The ratio of the composition of FA+GGBS was varied suitably. The primary objective for
performing the trial and error procedure was to obtain desired compressive strength. The
secondary objective was to obtain a good cohesive mix with good workability (slump of 75 to
100mm). The proportions of GPS and AAS were so decided that the test specimens cast were
demouldable after 24 hours of in-mould curing and as the required strength could be realized.
Table 4 presents the mixes formulated for the study of geopolymer concrete.
Table 4: The mixes formulated for the study of geopolymer concrete
MIX
ID
MOLAR
RATIO
Binder Composition
Mix
proportion
(BINDER:S
AND:CA)
CLS/
GPS
GPCAs
3M(120)
1:1.31:2.16
1:1.31:2.16
1:1.31:2.16
1:1.31:2.16
1:1.31:2.16
7M(280)
1:1.31:2.16
0.65
3M(120)
100%GGBS
1:1.31:2.16
0.65
5M(200)
100%GGBS
1:1.31:2.16
0.65
GPCCs
GPCCs
GPCCs
PPCs
28
40
3.96
30
41
36
45
39
52
4.60
48
57
44
47
46
54
5.30
48
60
19
45
4.50
0.65
GPCBs
7M(280)
0.65
GPCBs
5M(200)
24
0.65
GPCBs
3M(120)
16
0.65
GPCAs
7M(280)
Com
press
ive
stren
gth(7
days)
MPa
0.65
GPCAs
5M(200)
Split
tensi
le
stre
ngth
(MP
a)
Com
pres
sive
stre
ngth
(28
days
)
MPa
100%GGBS
1:1.31:2.16
0.65
100% CEMENT
1:2.48:2.16
0.45
Compressive Strength(MPa)
70
60
50
3M
5M
7M
40
30
20
10
0
GPCA series
GPCC series
Es = 14,142MPa
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International Journal of Civil and Structural Engineering
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of curing. The split tensile strength of GPC in the range of 3.96MPa to 5.39MPa and PPC
cylinder is 6.71MPa. The split tensile strength of GPC and PPC are shown in the Table.4. It
was observed that the quantity of GGBS increases and split tensile strength of GPC increases.
5. Conclusions
Based on the experimental investigations carried out on geopolymer concretes, it can be
concluded that
1.
The compressive strength of the geopolymer concrete is increased with the increasing
concentration of NaOH. The geopolymer concretes produced with different
combination of FA and GGBS are able to produce structural concretes of high grades
(much more than M40MPa) by self curing mechanisms only.
2.
The GPC mixes were produced easily using equipment similar to those used for
production of conventional cement concretes.
3.
4.
Apart from less energy intensiveness, the GPCs utilize the industrial wastes for
producing the binding system in concrete. There are both environmental and
economical benefits of using flyash and GGBS.
Acknowledgements
This paper is being published with the permission of the Director, CSIR-Structural
Engineering Research Centre, Chennai. The cooperation and guidance received from
Dr K. Muthumani Advanced Seismic Testing and Research laboratory and the technical staff
of Advanced Materials Laboratory of CSIR-SERC are gratefully acknowledged.
6. References
1. Ambily P.S, Madheswaran C.K., Sharmila.S and Muthiah.S., (2011), Experimental
and analytical investigations on shear behavior of reinforced geopolymer concrete
beams, International journal of civil and structural engineering, India, 2(2), pp 673688.
2. Ambily P.S, Madheswaran C.K., Lakshmanan.N, Dattatreya.J.K and Bhuvaneswari
(2012), Experimental studies on shear behavior of reinforced geopolymer concrete
thin webbed tee beams with and without steel fibre, International journal of civil and
structural engineering, India, 3(1).
3. Dattatreya.J.K, Madheswaran C.K., Ambily P.S, Sabitha.D and Annie Peter.J., (2011),
Development of advanced composite construction materials and methodologies for
assessment of durability related parameters, CSIR-structural engineering research
centre, India, September 2011, R& D 05-OLP13941-RR-20.
4. Ernst Worerell, Lynn Price et.al. Co2 emission from the global cement industry
Annual review of energy and the environment, 26, pp 303-329.
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