Effects of sugarcane bagasse ash as partial replacement of cement in the compressive strength and light transmissibility of Litracon blocks

Abstract

Living up to a culture of sustainability and efficiency, the Light Transmitting Concrete or Litracon came to its prominence recently. Aside from that, the increase in the production of cement for building structures to facilitate various social dynamics has contributed to the world’s exponentially increasing carbon emissions. Thereby, this study acts upon both phenomena by partially replacing the cement in the concrete mix for producing Litracon blocks using an agricultural waste material called Sugarcane Bagasse Ash or SCBA while aiming to improve their structural performance. The study used five (5) mix designs of 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, and 10% replacements, and a controlled mix with no replacement. Three (3) cubic samples of 150 mm side dimension for each mix were subjected to the light transmissibility test before the compressive strength test. Results showed that the illumination values in lux of 103 to 120 were at par with the Philippine illumination guidelines for interior rooms, from 100 to 150. Moreover, the highest recorded compressive strength result with SCBA percentage replacement was the 5% design mix at 28.81 MPa, and the 2.5% design mix had the lowest recorded compressive strength of 23.51 MPa. The results further showed that even with no significant relationship between the percentage replacements and compressive strength values from the two-tailed T-test, no significant difference between such strength values was found using the One-way ANOVA test. Thus, this supports the claim that SCBA can partially replace the cement used for the concrete mix of Litracon blocks.