BY ISHANT TALE & AMBRISH RAJPAYLE DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, GOVERNMENT COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, AMRAVATI

Ishant Tale
(3rd civil) G.C.O.E.A. e-mail ishant.tale@gmail.com

Ambrish Rajpayle
(3rd civil) G.C.O.E.A.

ABSTRACT Among various construction materials concrete is the most versatile material, other than steel; because of the convenience it offers to make different shapes and sizes without much difficulty. However to overcome the weaknesses of concrete like low tensile strength, less ductility, heavy weight etc many researchers all over the globe

are involved in the development construction materials to meet the demands imposed by the rapid industrialization. Their efforts made possible to produce construction materials of high strength and high performance apart from improved other mechanical properties. In this paper some of the salient features of the recent developments in the cement concrete composites, which have good potential for their application in routine construction activities are highlighted and briefly discussed with photographic presentation. The variations of various characteristics of these materials are also explained with the help of graphs obtained from laboratory tests. The following modern building materials are discussed in this paper: Silica Fume Ferrocement SIMCON Fly Ash Concretes SIFCON Polymer Concrete Composites Light Weight Concrete

INTRODUCTION: To meet the demands imposed by the rapid industrialization, the need for new constructions is increasing; lead to search for new construction materials. Concrete is the most versatile construction material. The inherent weakness of concrete in terms of its tensile strength is over come by reinforcing the structural elements by steel bars or by employing prestressed technique how ever these techniques are insufficient to overcome the major weaknesses like porosity and brittleness, which are limiting its strength and durability. To over come these handicaps, different types of cements and cement composites have been developed by the researchers. The admixers may be of either the chemical or mineral or even a

combination of both. Some of the features of the recent concrete composites are discussed below. 1) SILICA FUME: Silica Fume is a mineral admixture made up of ultra fine, solid, glassy spherical particles of silicon dioxide. It is obtained as a bi-product during the production of metallic silicon (or) ferrosilicon alloys in electric arc furnaces. It is an amorphous material with silica content from 85-95%. It posses high specific surface area about 20 to 23 m2/g gravity 2.05 to 2.20. Silica fume concrete has high bond strength, super abrasion, erosion and water resistance properties compared to conventional concretes. It has lower permeability to water vapour, and so it is widely used for bridge decks. Silica fume concrete also have good resistance against aggressive chemical environments and sulphate attacks. It reduces segregation and bleeding. Due to the high pozolanic action, large pores are transferred into small pores and instrumental in enhancing the compressive strength. The draw back using silica fume as an admixture is due to its increased drying shrinkage at the early ages. and specific

SETTING TIME OF CEMENT WITH % AGE REPLACEMENT BY SILICA FUME

SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF CEMENT W ITH PERCENTAGE REPLACEMENT BY SILICA FUME

400 350

3.2
Setting Time (Minutes)

3.15 3.1 Specific Gravity 3.05 3 2.95 2.9 2.85 2.8 2.75 2.7 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 % Replacemetn of Cement by Silica Fume

300 250

Intial Setting
200 150 100 50 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 % Replacament of Cement by Silica Fume

Final Setting

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY: - GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION 2) FERROCEMENT: What is Ferro-cement ? It is a strong, versatile, low-cost, long-lasting building material made from a wire-reinforced mixture of sand, water, and cement. A Ferrocement structure is usually 2-5 cm (3/4"-1 3/4") thick--- much thinner and lighter than poured concrete structures. Because it has wire reinforcing distributed throughout the structure, Ferro-cement structures have much greater tensile strength and flexibility than ordinary concrete. When building Ferro-cement structures the sand/cement mortar is applied to the reinforcing wire with a trowel, never poured like common concrete. Often a form is used to provide the desired shape.
COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF CEMENT WITH % REPLACEMENT BY SILICA FUME
80 76 72 68 64 60 56 52 48 44 40 36 32 28 24 20 16

Compressive Strength(MPa)

3 Days 7 Days 28 Days 90 Days

10

15

20

25

30

35

% Replacement of Cem ent by Silica Fume

Ferro-Cement: One material for many uses: If you are thinking about building a low-cost, long lasting water tank, a commercial fishing boat, a life-size model dinosaur, a semi-

subterranean house, or a retreat center in the remote desert, ferro-cement might just be your material of choice.

Other uses for ferro-cement are numerous: walls, floors, and roofs for underground structures, underground water tanks, built-in-place well liners, water control devices, canal lining, retaining walls, stairways built over adobe blocks, rain splash protection for adobe and rammed earth structures ---just to name a few.

Ferro-Cement Basics: The strength of a Ferro-cement structure depends on basically two things: 1. The quality of the sand/cement mortar mix. The sand must be clean and sharp. The cement must be fresh, and the mortar mix "dry"that is: well mixed using a minimum of water. The mortar should be used as soon as possible after mixing, especially in warmweather.

2. The quantity of reinforcing material, usually common "chicken wire". More wire results in a stronger structure. A high quality boat hull will require as many layers of wire as can be gotten into the thickness of the hull. 3) SIMCON: SIMCON, which stands for Slurry Infiltrated Mat Concrete, is well suited for the development of novel repair, retrofit and new-construction solutions that lead to economical and improved structural performance. SIMCON uses a manufactured continuous mat of interlocking discontinuous steel fibers, placed in a form, and then infiltrated with a flow able cement-based slurry. The use of continuous mats, typically made with stainless steel to control corrosion in very thin members, permits development of high flexural strengths and very high ductility with a reduced volume of fibers. The experimental results demonstrate that SIMCON exhibits improved properties in tension, compression, flexure and shear even when comparatively low fiber volume fraction fiber-mats are used. Furthermore, since fiber-mats are pre-packed in the plant, distribution and orientation of fibers can be more accurately controlled, than is the case with short discontinuous fiber HPFRC. These characteristics allow for

the manufacturing of a unique cement-based fiber composite that can have different yet easily controllable properties in the longitudinal and transversal directions. These material characteristics are desirable in repair/retrofit of structural elements such as columns, which require a high increase in strength and toughness in the transverse direction while increasing only ductility but not strength in the longitudinal direction (i.e., "moment-carrying" direction). The investigations also demonstrate that SIMCON has considerable potential for both seismic repair/retrofit, as well as the development of novel, high-performance composite structural systems. In a retrofit situation continuous SIMCON fiber-mats, delivered in large rolls. Can be easily installed by wrapping around members to be rehabilitated. In new construction of high-performance composite frames SIMCON is well suited for manufacturing high strength, high ductility, and thin stay-in-place formwork elements that eliminate the need for secondary and most of the primary reinforcement.

STATUS: New generation of HPFRCCs made with continuous fiber-mats, called Slurry Infiltrated Mat Concrete (SIMCON) can be used in: (1) Seismic retrofit. (2) The development of a novel, partially-cast-in-place High Performance Composite Frame and (3) The development of a "self-stressing" SIMCON stay-in-place formwork that can provide active confinement after the core of the member has been cast-in-place. 4) FLY ASH CONCRETES :Fly ash, the waste material produced during the thermal power production, is a mixture of fine particles containing SiO 2, Al203, Fe2O3 and CaO as main constituents, which are responsible for its pozzolanic activity. The chemical composition of fly ash may vary from one plant to other and also from time to time even in one plant. However, as per ASTM C 618-89, if the combination of SiO2, Al 203, and Fe2O3 exceeds 50% then it can be used for concrete applications. In general, the fly ash has been used as a cement replacement material (about 15% to 35%) during the

production of low strength as well as medium strength concretes. The durability of fly ash concrete was found to be good against chlorides and sulphate attacks, corrosion and alkali aggregate reactions. With the rapid development of industries in India, the production of fly ash to be around 80 to 100 lakh tones per annum in the near future which lead to big disposal problem. Hence, many investigations are being carried out by many researchers to make use of fly ash in economical way for making low strength as well as high Performance concretes part from building blocks and bricks. 5) SIFCON: This is a new and special material obtained by modifying the fibre reinforced concrete in which a very high percentage of steel fibres is incorporated into the cement matrix. If the dosage of fibers exceeds 3% by volume in conventional fiber reinforced concrete, balling of fibers take place due to which May difficulties arise4 during mixing and placing. To overcome this draw back, SIFCON was developed. This contains a high volume of fibers in the range of 15% to 20% by volume. This is made possible by repacking the forms / moulds by steel fibers first and then the cement slurry or cement sand slurry infiltrated into the fiber bed. The SIFCON has very high ductility, tensile and impact strength. This material is most suitable for the construction of blast resistant and impact resistant structures. 6) POLYMER CONCRETES COMPOSITES: By use of polymer cement concrete composites many of the disadvantages of ordinary cement concrete can be overcome. These composites can be produced using polymers either as surface coating on concrete or by impregnating them into the concrete. These composites possess very high strengths (up to 200 MPa in compression) and are more durable apart form high resistance to many chemicals and acids. These polymer cement concrete composites can be broadly divided into three categories; namely, Polymer impregnated concretes (PIC), concretes and Polymer cement concretes. Polymer impregnated concretes are produced by impregnating the monomers which are usually styrene, methyl-methacrylate or polymethyl -metacrylate etc., into the pore system of the hardened concrete through various pressure techniques. After impregnation, theses concretes were subjected to polymerization through either by radiation or treatment. Then, these polymers will occupy the pore system which lead these concretes to be of highly impermeable and chemical resistant.

In the case of polymers concrete, the polymer itself acts as a sole binder instead of cement and water. These polymer concretes can be produced either by prepack method or by premix method. In the former case, the moulds are prepacked with well-graded aggregates and then polymer is poured to fill the voids. Vacuum process can also adopt to ensure the penetration of polymer into the voids. In the later case, polymer and aggregates are mixed in the conventional mixers and then this mix will be poured into moulds. These concretes are highly chemical resistant and almost impermeable these are being extensively used in structures discharging chemical effluents.

POLYMER CEMENT CONSTRUCTION MODEL Polymer cement composites, also called as polymer modified cement composites, are produced by mixing a polymeric additive (latex or pre-polymer) with the ingredients of ordinary concrete. Though the initial cost of these polymer cement concrete composites is much higher than the conventional concrete (about 8 to 10 times), the estimated material cost efficiency of these concrete is high. Hence, they proved to be economical in long run for special and specific applications.

7) LIGHT WEIGHT CONCRETE : Light weight concretes can be used as insulating concretes as well as structural concretes. Density of lightweight concretes ranges from 300 to 2000 kg/m3. These concretes are also called as light weight concretes, aerated of cellular or foamed or gas concretes and no-fines concretes respectively based on their method of production.

These concretes can generally be produced by three methods, namely

1. By using lightweight aggregates. 2. By introducing large voids with in the concrete. 3. By simply omitting the fine aggregate from the mix. These are generally expensive than the ordinary concrete. However, their usages are increasing gradually since, for many purposes, the advantages of these concretes outweigh their disadvantages. Lightweight concrete aggregates can be used for all structural concrete applications due to its following advantages: Reduced dead loads with no loss of strength Better high resistance Higher freeze thaw resistance in cold climates Excellent hydraulic conductivity
LIGHT WEIGHT CONCRETE ROOF MATERIAL

CONCLUSIONS: 1. The use of silica fume in reinforced and prestressed concrete lead to development of ultra high strength concrete as high as 120Mpa.this lead to reduction in cross section of columns and beams. 2. In the area of construction materials, there is a great potential in future for the special composite materials to achieve more strong, durable and cost efficient construction material. 3. Polymer impregnation of reinforced and fibre reinforced concrete with or with out the use of prestressing has high potential in future. 4. Several plastic, glass and their derivatives can be used along with concrete for better functional comfort and easiness in fabrication and assembly of various structures. 5. All these varieties are used as fire resistant as well as higher freeze-thaw resistant material. 6. The search for new construction materials is a never-ending process as long as the inquisitiveness of man exists.