Sadaqat Ullah Khan

Effects of Different Mineral Admixtures on the Properties of Fresh Concrete

This paper presents a review of the properties of fresh concrete including workability, heat of hydration, setting time, bleeding, and reactivity by using mineral admixtures fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), metakaolin (MK), and rice husk ash (RHA). Comparison of normal and high-strength concrete in which cement has been partially supplemented by mineral admixture has been considered. It has been concluded that mineral admixtures may be categorized into two groups: chemically active mineral admixtures and microfiller mineral admixtures. Chemically active mineral admixtures decrease workability and setting time of concrete but increase the heat of hydration and reactivity. On the other hand, microfiller mineral admixtures increase workability and setting time of concrete but decrease the heat of hydration and reactivity. In general, small particle size and higher specific surface area of mineral admixture are favourable to produce highly dense and impermeable concrete; however, they cause low workability and demand more water which may be offset by adding effective superplasticizer.

Mechanical characteristics of hardened concrete with different mineral admixtures: a review.

The available literature identifies that the addition of mineral admixture as partial replacement of cement improves the microstructure of the concrete (i.e., porosity and pore size distribution) as well as increasing the mechanical characteristics such as drying shrinkage and creep, compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, and modulus of elasticity; however, no single document is available in which review and comparison of the influence of the addition of these mineral admixtures on the mechanical characteristics of the hardened pozzolanic concretes are presented. In this paper, based on the reported results in the literature, mechanical characteristics of hardened concrete partially containing mineral admixtures including fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), metakaolin (MK), and rice husk ash (RHA) are discussed and it is concluded that the content and particle size of mineral admixture are the parameters which significantly influence the mechanical properties of concrete. All mineral admixtures enhance the mechanical properties of concrete except FA and GGBS which do not show a significant effect on the strength of concrete at 28 days; however, gain in strength at later ages is considerable. Moreover, the comparison of the mechanical characteristics of different pozzolanic concretes suggests that RHA and SF are competitive.

Strength development of high-strength ductile concrete incorporating Metakaolin and PVA fibers.

The mechanical properties of high-strength ductile concrete (HSDC) have been investigated using Metakaolin (MK) as the cement replacing material and PVA fibers. Total twenty-seven (27) mixes of concrete have been examined with varying content of MK and PVA fibers. It has been found that the coarser type PVA fibers provide strengths competitive to control or higher than control. Concrete with coarser type PVA fibers has also refined microstructure, but the microstructure has been undergone with the increase in aspect ratio of fibers. The microstructure of concrete with MK has also more refined and packing of material is much better with MK. PVA fibers not only give higher stiffness but also showed the deflection hardening response. Toughness Index of HSDC reflects the improvement in flexural toughness over the plain concrete and the maximum toughness indices have been observed with 10% MK and 2% volume fraction of PVA fibers.

Effect of Metakaolin and PVA Fibres on the Workability and Mechanical Properties of Concrete

Locally produced metakaolin (MK) as the cement replacing material and PVA fibres has been used. The effect on workability and on the mechanical properties of concrete has been investigated. Total fifteen (15) mixes of concrete have been examined using MK 5 to 10% and PVA fibres of aspect ratio 45, 60, 90 and 120 with 1% volume fraction. Three (03) mixes without PVA fibre have been used as control mixes. For each mix, test for slump, cube compressive strength and splitting tensile strength has been performed. It has been found that MK and PVA fibres causes decrease in slump but use of MK and PVA fibres together improves the workability. The use of MK and PVA fibres has advantageous in increasing compressive strength and splitting tensile strength.

Finite element modelling of FRC beams containing PVA and Basalt fibres: A comparative study

The endeavour of current study is to compare the flexural behaviour and three dimensional (3D) finite element analysis (FEA) and the results of FEM are compared with the experimental results of 07 HPFRC beams. Out of seven (07), 01 beam of plain concrete without fibres was cast as a control beam. Three (03) beams containing 1, 2 and 3% volume of PVA fibres were prepared by using HPFRC mixes while, the remaining other three (03) beams were prepared using HPFRC mixes containing 1, 2 and 3% volume of Basalt fibres. In order to ensure flexural failure, three-point bending load was applied at the mid span of all beams. The maximum flexural load and corresponding deflection and strains at the mid span attained prior to the failure were obtained as flexural test results. The FEM results were obtained by simulating all beams in ATENA 3D program and verified through flexural test results. Both of the results of FEM and Experiment showed good agreement with each other.

Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Concrete Reinforced with PVA and Basalt Fibres

This chapter focuses on the mechanical properties of high-strength concrete (HSC) incorporating PVA and Basalt fibres. Total seven (07) mixes of HSC were prepared including one control mix (containing no fibre). Out of remaining six (06) mixes, three (03) mixes were containing PVA fibres as 1, 2 and 3 % by volume of the overall concrete, whereas in other three (03) mixes, Basalt fibres were added in the same range and dosage, as proposed for PVA fibres. The mechanical properties investigated in current study include compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and modulus of elasticity. Beside this, results of compressive strength of the cube and cylinder have also been compared in terms of cylinder/cube strength ratios. Experimental results showed that PVA fibres reinforced HSC attained higher mechanical properties in comparison to Basalt fibres reinforced HSC due better crack bridging ability and better concrete confinement.

Effects of Ferrocement in Strengthening the Serviceability Properties of Reinforced Concrete Structures

The aim of this paper is to investigate the serviceability performance of RC beams strengthened through two Ferrocement strengthening techniques as Cast in situ Wire-mesh layers and precast Ferrocement Laminates. To assess the effectiveness of these strengthening techniques, eight (08) RC beams have been intentionally designed and detailed as a tension-controlled section and tested under two-point loading up to service load of 40 kN. Then, beams were strengthened by Cast in situ Wire-mesh layers and by precast Ferrocement Laminates. Experimental results in terms of stiffness have been compared within and across the groups to assess the effect of variation of development length and no. of wire-mesh layers.

Behavioral Study of RC Beams Designed for Shear Using CFP and ACI Code Models

Compressive Force Path concept is a proposed shear design method to explain shear behavior in reinforced concrete beams. This concept identifies 04 behaviors based on the shear span to beam depth (a/d) ratio and provides detailed shear design and transverse reinforcement detailing procedure for each behavior. Therefore, author of this paper intended to use this concept as a practical tool for the designing of RC beams particularly for Type II (2 ≤ a/d < 5) and Type III (1 < a/d < 2) behaviors to validate the concept. Total 08 beams of 100×200×1800 mm size beams were cast; out of which, 04 beams were designed according to ACI Code approach while, rest were designed and detailed using CFP concept strategy. The beam sizes in this study are identical and all parameters are constant except shear span ‘a’. The two-point loading test results of RC beams showed that the shear resistance of concrete is better estimated by the CFP concept with a good prediction of cracks pattern, load carrying capacity and actual behavior of the beams in shear as compared to the beams designed according to ACI Code approach. However, most of the beams, particularly a/d ratio less than 4.44 were observed to be deficient in serviceability and failed in shear in spite of attaining theoretical predicted loads.

Microstructure characteristics of concrete incorporating metakaolin and PVA fibers and influence on the compressive strength

In this paper, microstructure of concrete is investigated using metakaolin (MK) as cement replacing material and Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) fibers. Total ten (10) mixes of concrete are examined by varying PVA fiber aspect ratio. It was found that MK refines the pore structure, improves interfacial transition zone (ITZ) due to its pozzolanic effects, reduces portlandite (Ca(OH)2) content and bridges the gap between matrix and aggregates due to finer particle size. Due to improvement in ITZ, the compressive strength was improved. There was no indication of Ca(OH)2 around the PVA fibers in the presence of MK and the interface between the fiber and matrix was observed very narrow.

Strength Development of Concrete Incorporating Metakaolin and PVA Fibres

Study has been conducted to investigate the effect of aspect ratio and volume fraction of PVA fibres on the mechanical properties of concrete. Total eighteen (18) mixes of concrete have been examined using metakaolin up to 5% and PVA fibres of aspect ratio 45, 60, 90 and 120 with volume fraction 1 to 2%. Compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength at 7 days and 28 days have been determined to check the effect of volume fraction and the aspect ratio of PVA fibres. It has been found that 2% volume fraction is better than 1% and there is increasing trend up to a certain value of aspect ratio in the strengths of concrete.