Admixtures

Lecture No. 12

Artificial Pozzolans

Fly ash

Blast Furnace Slag

Silica Fume

Rice Husk ash

Metakaoline

Surkhi.

Fly Ash

Fly ash is finely divided residue resulting from the combustion of powdered coal and transported by the flue gases and collected by electrostatic precipitator.

Fly ash is the most widely used pozzolanic material all over the world.

The importance and use of fly ash in concrete has grown so much that it has almost become a common ingredient in concrete, particularly for making high strength and high performance concrete.

The utilisation of fly ash as a supplementary cementitious material. High volume fly ash concrete is a subject of current interest all over the world.

Fly Ash

The use of fly ash as concrete admixture not only extends technical advantages to the properties of concrete but also contributes to the environmental pollution control.

There are two ways that the fly ash can be used: one way is to intergrind certain percentage of fly ash with cement clinker at the factory to produce Portland pozzolana cement (PPC) and the second way is to use the fly ash as an admixture at the time of making concrete at the site of work.

One of the important characteristics of fly ash is the spherical form of the particles. This shape of particle improves the flowability and reduces the water demand. The suitability of fly ash could be decided by finding the dry density of fully compacted sample.

Fly Ash

Fly Ash

Class F: Fly ash normally produced by burning anthracite or

bituminous coal, usually has less than 5% CaO. Class F fly ash

has pozzolanic properties only.

Class C: Fly ash normally produced by burning lignite or sub-

bituminous coal. Some class C fly ash may have CaO content

in excess of 10%. In addition to pozzolanic properties, class C

fly ash also possesses cementitious properties.

Effect of Fly Ash on Fresh Concrete

Use of right quality fly ash, results in reduction of water

demand for desired slump.

With the reduction of unit water content, bleeding and drying

shrinkage will also be reduced.

Since fly ash is not highly reactive, the heat of hydration can be

reduced through replacement of part of the cement with fly

ash.The reduction of temperature rise for 30% substitution of

fly ash.

Effects of Fly Ash on Hardened Concrete

Fly ash, when used in concrete, contributes to the strength of concrete due to its pozzolanic reactivity. However, since the pozzolanic reaction proceeds slowly, the initial strength of fly ash concrete tends to be lower than that of concrete without fly ash.

Due to continued pozzolanic reactivity concrete develops greater strength at later age, which may exceed that of the concrete without fly ash.

Fly ash concrete should be cured for longer period. In this sense, fly ash concrete used in under water structures such as dams will derive full benefits of attaining improved long term strength and water-tightness.

Durability of Concrete

Sufficiently cured concrete containing good quality fly ash

shows dense structure which offers high resistivity to the

infiltration of deleterious substances.

It is also recognised that the addition of fly ash contributes to

the reduction of the expansion due to alkali-aggregate

reaction.

High Volume Fly Ash Concrete (HVFA)

High volume fly ash concrete is a concrete where in 50 to 60% fly ash is incorporated. It was first developed for mass concrete application where low heat of hydration was of primary consideration.

Subsequent work has demonstrated that this type of concrete showed excellent mechanical and durability properties required for structural applications and pavement constructions.

Due to very low water content of high volume fly ash concrete, the use of superplasticizer becomes necessary for obtaining workable concrete. Use of air-entraining admixtures is also concurrently used.

Silica Fume

Silica fume, also referred to as microsilica or condensed silica fume, is another materialthat is used as an artificial pozzolanic admixture.

It is a product resulting from reduction of high purity quartz with coal in an electric arc furnace in the manufacture of silicon or ferrosilicon alloy.

Silica fume rises as an oxidised vapour. It cools, condenses and is collected in cloth bags.

It is further processed to remove impurities and to control particle size. Condensed silica fume is essentially silicon dioxide (more than 90%) in noncrystalline form. Since it is an airborne material like fly ash, it has spherical shape. Influence on Fresh Concrete

Silica Fume

Silica Fume

It is extremely fine with particle size less than 1 micron and with an average diameter of about 0.1 micron, about 100 times smaller than average cement particles. Silica fume has specific surface area of about 20,000 m2/kg against 230 to 300 m2/kg.

Silica fume has become one of the necessary ingredients for making high strength and high performance concrete. In India, silica fume has been used very rarely. Nuclear Power Corporation was one of the first to use silica fume concrete in their Kaiga and Kota nuclear power projects.

Silica fume was also used for one of the flyovers at Mumbai where, for the first time in India 75 MPa concrete was used (1999). Silica fume is also now specified for the construction of proposed Bandra-Worli sea link project at Mumbai.

Silica Fume

Silica fume, also referred to as microsilica or condensed silica fume, is another materialthat is used as an artificial pozzolanic admixture.

It is a product resulting from reduction of high purity quartz with coal in an electric arc furnace in the manufacture of silicon or ferrosilicon alloy.

Silica fume rises as an oxidised vapour. It cools, condenses and is collected in cloth bags.

It is further processed to remove impurities and to control particle size. Condensed silica fume is essentially silicon dioxide (more than 90%) in noncrystalline form. Since it is an airborne material like fly ash, it has spherical shape. Influence on Fresh Concrete

Influence on Fresh Concrete

Water demand increases in proportion to the amount of

microsilica added. The increase in water demand of

concrete containing microsilica will be about 1% for every

1% of cement substituted.

Therefore, 20 mm maximum size aggregate concrete,

containing 10% microsilica, will have an increased water

content of about 20 litres/m3

Measures can be taken to avoid this increase by adjusting the

aggregate grading and using superplasticizers.

Influence on Fresh Concrete

The addition of microsilica will lead to lower slump but

more cohesive mix. The microsilica make the fresh

concrete sticky in nature and hard to handle.

It was also found that there was large reduction in

bleeding and concrete with microsilica could be handled

and transported without segregation. .

It is reported that concrete containing microsilica is

vulnerable to plastic shrinkage cracking and, therefore,

sheet or mat curing should be considered.

Influence on Hardened Concrete

Concrete containing microsilica showed outstanding

characteristics in the development of strength. It has been

also found out that modulus of elasticity of microsilica

concrete is less than that of concrete without microsilica

at the same level of compressive strength.

Rice Husk Ash

Rice husk ash is obtained by burning rice husk in a controlled manner without causing environmental pollution.

When properly burnt it has high SiO2 content and can be used as a concrete admixture. Rice husk ash exhibits high pozzolanic characteristics and contributes to high strength and high impermeability of concrete.

India produces about 122 million ton of paddy every year. Each ton of paddy producers about 40 kg of RHA. There is a good potential to make use of RHA as a valuable pozzolanic material to give almost the same properties as that of microsilica.

Surkhi

Surkhi, was the commonest pozzolanic materials used in India.

Surkhi is an artificial pozzolana made by powdering bricks or burnt clay balls. In some major works, for large scale production of surkhi, clay balls are specially burnt for this purpose and then powdered.

By its nature, it is a very complex material differing widely in its qualities and performances. Being derived from soil, its characteristics are greatly influenced by the constituent mineral composition of soil, degree of burning and fineness of grinding.

Because of the complexity of problem there has been much confusion on account of contradictory results obtained by various research workers.

Surkhi

Now the terminology “calcined clay Pozzolana” is used

instead of the word surkhi, giving specific property and

composition to this construction material. IS 1344 of

1981 covers the specification for calcined clay pozzolana

for use in mortar or concrete. IS 1727 of 1967 covers the

methods of test for pozzolanic materials.

Surkhi

Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag

(GGBS)

Ground granulated blast-furnace slag is a nonmetallic

product consisting essentially of silicates and aluminates

of calcium and other bases. The molten slag is rapidly

chilled by quenching in water to form a glassy sand like

granulated material. The granulated material when further

ground to less than 45 micron will have specific surface of

about 400 to 600 sq m/kg(blaine)

The performance of slag largely depends on the chemical

composition, glass content and fineness of grinding.

Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag

(GGBS)

There are two methods for making Blast Furnace Slag

Cement. In the first method blast furnace slag is

interground with cement clinker along with gypsum.

In the second method blast furnace slag is separately

ground and then mixed with the cement.

Performance of GGBS in Concrete The replacement of cement with GGBS will reduce the unit water

content necessary to obatain the same slump.

This reduction of unit water content will be more pronounced with increase in slag content and also on the fineness of slag. This is because of the surface configuration and particle shape of slag being different than cement particle.

In addition, water used for mixing is not immediately lost, as the surface hydration of slag is slightly slower than that of cement

Reduced heat of hydration

Refinement of pore structures

Reduced permeabilities to the external agencies

Increased resistance to chemical attack.