The paper aims to study cellular concrete with a new approach of formulation without an autoclave, with the use of aluminum waste and incorporation of mineral additions into the sand and evaluate its physical and mechanical properties. In this experimental study, two types of cellular concrete are prepared, based on crushed and dune sand with the incorporation of 15% of the slag and 10% of pozzolana, as sand replacement. An experimental program was performed to determine the compressive strength at 28 days, the density and thermal conductivity of the confected cellular concrete. The obtained results showed that concretes prepared with crushed sand developed better mechanical resistance compared to the dune sand. It is also noted that the concretes containing the mineral additions provide a substantial increase in compressive strength in particular slag. Furthermore, cellular concretes with sand dunes offer better thermal conductivity, compared to those with crushed sand. The use of the additions reduces the Water/Binder (W/B) ratio and leads to a lower thermal conductivity regardless of the used sand nature. The outcome of the present study here in could present a modest contribution for the production of cellular concrete with local materials in particular dune sand, active mineral addition and aluminum waste. The physical and mechanical properties obtained from this new composition are estimated acceptable compared to those of the industry-prepared cellular concrete product. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091721 Full Text: PDF

This experimental study aims to study the mechanical behaviour of a mortar based on cement blended with mineral additions (pozzolana, limestone and slag), knowing that the mechanical strength of a mortar is closely related to its composition. The use of the three mineral additions simultaneously, presents a high number of factors affecting the mechanical resistance and requires a very large number of experiments and the obtained data analysis becomes much more complex. In order to optimise the number of tests and to achieve a such satisfactory analysis, a statistical approach known as an "experimental design" was used. The experimental methodology has been established to assess the compressive strength of mortars at 2, 7, 28 and 60 days, by the elaboration of an experimental design for a set of cement mixtures, the level of the three additions (factors), slag, limestone and pozzolana at rates varying from 0% to 35%, provided that a fixed dosage of 35% is maintained for all combinations to form a binary, ternary and quaternary cement in accordance with cement standard requirements CEM II/B. This statistical approach allowed us to evaluate by a numerical analysis the effect of each addition alone as well the meaning of the double or triple interaction resulting from the association of two or three additions at a time. In addition, it has enabled us to establish a representative model that permitted to estimate and predict the mechanical behaviour of any composition in the experimental program with tolerable errors. The obtained results lead to a satisfactory numerical modeling of the compressive strengths, in particular at the age of 28 days, with a trend curve of a an acceptable determined coefficient of R2 equal to 0.87.