Studies on the Mechanical Properties of Ternary Blended Geopolymer Concrete using Fly ash, GGBS and Alccofine

Abstract

In the present context of sustainable development, the entire construction sector is focusing on reducing the carbon dioxide emissions. Geopolymer concrete is an alternate to the traditional cement concrete which has no cement thereby reducing the CO2 emissions. Geopolymer concrete attains the requisite strength through the process of polymerization instead of hydration as in case of the traditional cement concrete. In the geopolymer concrete, fly ash is the binder which participates in the process of polymerization along with the alkali’s like NaOH and Na2SiO3. In the current study, the ternary blended geopolymer concrete was made using Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag (GGBS), Fly Ash (FA) and Alccofine as binder materials. In the first stage geopolymer concrete using fly ash was developed. In the second stage, the binary blend geopolymer concrete was developed using two binders Fly Ash and GGBS. Finally, Alccofine was included as the ternary binder in the geopolymer concrete. Two grades of concrete with different binder contents and alkaline to binder ratio were developed having 28-day compressive strengths of 40 & 65 MPa. The mixes were cast and tested for the mechanical properties like compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexure strength at 7 & 28 days. The results of ternary blended geopolymer were compared with the results of fly ash based geopolymer concrete and binary blend geopolymer concrete. It was observed from experimental results that ternary blend geopolymer concrete has shown better results compared to the binary blend as well as FA based geopolymer concrete.