2.

1 Introduction

Concrete is a vital part of societys infrastructure. Everyday life is greatly affected

by concrete in countless ways. It is ubiquitously. Concrete is a utilitarian
construction material and innovations are made in new types and applications for it.
Concrete is obtained by mixing cement, aggregates, water and sometimes
admixtures in required proportions. The strength, durability and other
characteristics of the concrete depend to the properties of its ingredients,
proportions of mix, compaction method and other controls during placing and
curing.
In Malaysia, foamed or aerated concrete is not something new and now has become
one of the most commercialized material used in construction industry. Normal
foamed concrete is versatile material with a simple production method that is
relatively inexpensive compared to autoclaved aerated concrete.
Foamed concrete is produced in a variety of densities from 200 kg/m3 to 1600
kg/m3 depending on the application. Lighter density products may be cut into
different sizes. While the product is considered a form of concrete even though air
bubbles replace aggregate, its high thermal and acoustical insulating qualities
makes it very different application than conventional concrete.
As a result of this, this research tends to study in a comparative sense the potential
of pyrolysis oil based foamed concrete with normal fly ash based foamed concrete.
Furthermore, the use of rubber waste can help to decrease the amount of waste into
landfills. The consequence of huge material waste in the landfills has yet provide a
serious problem due its highly polluted effluents.
In the manner now being exemplified, an initiative are made to minimize the
environmental problems by encouraging waste recycling in the construction
industry. Pulverized materials as the result of incineration partially replaced a
certain percent of cement should be considered wise to be practiced majorly.

2.2 History and Background

Foamed concrete is not a peculiarly new material, its first patent and recorded use
dates back to the early 1920s. According to Sach and Seifert (1999), limited scale
production began in 1923 and, according to Arasteh (1988), in 1924 Linde described
its production, properties and applications. The implementation of foamed concrete
for construction works was not recognized until the late 1970s, when it began to be
used in the Netherlands for filling voids and for ground engineering applications.
Significant improvements in production methods and the quality of foaming agents
over the last 15 years have led to increased production and broadening of the range
of applications. A substantial research program carried out in Holland assist to
promote foamed concrete as a building material.
These foam concrete materials basically consist of Portland cement, fine aggregate,
water and stable foam. By adding materials such as stable foam, small cell or air
bubble will form inside the concrete which this is one of the factors makes it lighter.
It is also can be call homogeneous void structure, this process is the result from
introducing air in form of bubble where this action incorporates small enclosed air
bubbles within the mortar there by making the concrete lighter than a normal
concrete. The entrapped air bubbles increases the volume and thereby reduces the
densities of a concrete (Dhir et al., 1999) . The density of foam concrete is
determined by the amount of foam and water that added to the mixture.

2.3.1 Constituent of Foamed Concrete

The essential components in foam concrete are binder, water and foam. Optionally
sand, fibre, filler and additives such as water-reducing agent, setting-controlling
agent, etc. can be added according to the practical requirement [Deijk, 1991].

2.3.2 Foamed Concrete Designs

The proposed foamed concrete mix design is by partially replacing part of
cement with bamboo ash. The reason behind the proposal is bamboo in its nature
form is low in density, and so is its fly ash. Previous research with other types of
pulverized materials of has been conducted and each shows its individual
performance.
1. Foamed Concrete with Sugar Cane Bagasse Ash
In usual cases, bagasse which is waste from sugarcane once the sugar is
extracted. It can be used to make particle boards or other fibre-boards. It is
also extensively used as a construction material alternative specifically as a
binder which comes from the form of bagasse ash. Sugarcane bagasse ash
(SCBA) is one of the main byproduct can be used as mineral admixture due to
its high content in silica (SiO2) [S.A. Bhalchandra and Rajesh L. Shirale,
Performance of steel fiber reinforced metakaolin concrete, The Indian
Concrete Journal, pp37-43, Aug 2011].A few studies have been carried out on
the ashes obtained directly from the industries to study pozzolanic activity
and their suitability as binders, partially replacing cement [IS 10262:
2009, Indian Standard, recommended guidelines for concrete mix designs,
Bureau of Indian Standard, New Delhi].
Previous experiment has conducted a study on SCBA, obtained the material
by controlled combustion of sugarcane bagasse. The study analysed the
effect of SCBA in concrete by partial replacement of cement at the ratio of
0%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30% by weight. After mixing, the specimens
were cured for 7, 28, 56, and 90 days.
After a successful casting, the result show that the SCBA concrete had
significantly higher compressive strength compare to that of the concrete
without SCBA. It is found that the cement could be advantageously replaced
with SCBA up to maximum limit of 15%. Although, the optimal level of SCBA
content was achieved with 15.0% replacement. Partial replacement of
cement by SCBA increases workability of fresh concrete; therefore use of
super plasticizer is not essential.

2.3.3 Foaming Agent

2.4 Previous Research

2.4.1 Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA)
Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) obtained from the incineration of oil palm shell and
palm oil empty fruit bunch at a temperature of 800C to 1000C as a method
for heating the mills boilers instead of using inventional fuels (Awang and Z.
Al-Mulali, 2015). The use of 10% to 20% POFA as part of filler in lightweight
foamed concrete increase their compressive, splitting tensile and flexural
strength. This mainly due to the high reactive silica content found in POFA
(Lim et al, 2013). The strength obtained at 90 days compressive strength
showed 7.17 N/mm2 for 10% and 7.06 N/mm2 for 20% POFA act as filler in
concrete mix. The strength of concrete is influenced by the fineness of POFA.
For same replacement of POFA in concrete, finer POFA would lead to greater
strength development than the coarser one (Awal, 1998). This is due to
higher total surface area of POFA particle that increase the pozzolanic activity
and hence increase the concrete strength. Figure 2.1 shows the strength
development for 10% to 20% POFA.
2.4.2 Fly Ash
Referring to Jaafar (2008), fly ash is a product resulting from the combustion
of coal of pulverized smoke. When the pulverized coal is turned in combustion
chamber, the carbon and volatile material are burned off. Fly ash as additives
contributes to the mechanical properties of foamed concrete. Both
compressive and flexural strength increased with longer curing period as slow
pozzolanic reaction takes place. Fly ash helps in producing small size and
uniform distribution of pore. This provides better strength as each pore and
void are well connected (Awang et al, 2012). Table 2.3 shows the compressive
strength of foamed concrete with fly ash that carried out up to 180 days. The
result shows that fly ash has benefit which gives compact composition of
structure thus providing addition strength and have highest compressive
strength results compared with other additives such as lime and
polypropylene fibre.
24.3

Foamed Concrete with Paper Sludge Ash

Paper sludge is generated in a vast amount all around the world. Paper mill
sludge is a major economic and environmental problem for the paper and
board industry [IOSRJEN, 2013]. The paper sludge, comprises of cellulose
fibers, fillers such as calcium carbonate and china clay and residual
chemicals bound with water. Physically, the material is sticky, viscous and
difficult to dry. Besides, it is found to be used as an alternative fuel. To obtain
the material, paper sludge ash is incinerated which reduce it to fly ash which
may contain reactive silica, alumina and lime hence giving the material
potential for cement kiln feed and blended cement materials.
A study that is conducted by IUST Kashmir professors has summarized the
behavior of paper sludge ash with concrete by the method of partial

replacement with cement in the range of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%. Normal
mixing procedures was carried out and the result was obtained.
Table 2.1

The table above shows the compressive strength of the concrete mix at 7
days age. What can be obtained from the table above is the best
performance of the paper sludge ash is at 5% while the performance drop at
a higher percentage.
Average dry weight of the cube specimens of each mixture was observed.
The results showed serious decrease in the dry weight as the percentage.
Therefore waste paper sludge ash concrete is lightweight in nature.

2.5 Findings
A concrete success lies in its versatility as can be designed to withstand harshest
environments while taking on the most inspirational forms. Thus, various help of
innovative chemical admixtures and diverse supplementary cementitious materials
are researched.
Bagasse ash was not recommended in this finding in the fact that bagasse ash
decreases the soundness and compressive strength of mortar as the percentage of
bagasse ash increase, this is as investigated by [Amrita Kumari, Prof. Sheo Kumar,
International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology,
Vol. 4, Issue 7, July 2015]. Hence, strength requiring foamed concrete would not be
pertinent to be batched with sugarcane bagasse ash. On the other hand, concrete
density decrease as the percentage of bagasse ash increase. This can be a huge
advantage to the property of a foamed concrete which is lightweight.
As for bamboo, bamboo is strong. Almost as strong as steel. It is also pretty
effective at curbing carbon emissions which makes it an even better and
sustainable building material [Jessica McMathis,
2015 The American Ceramic Society]. However, bamboo is an organic material
which comes from plant and as for material that sustained from plant can rot and
swell if it is left untreated and come in contact with water. Nonetheless for the
previous statement, a research team led by Dirk Hebel at Future Cities has
developed a bamboo fibre composite that showed great promise as a replacement
for steel reinforcements. According to a Civil Engineering Magazine (CE) article, te
composite 80 percent bamboo, 20 percent adhesive, and 300 more dense than
raw bamboo is water resistant, does not swell, and is durable. Hence, the
relevance of the usage of bamboo fibre in foamed concrete should be feasible.

2.6 Conclusion
Based on the findings, the following conclusions can be drawn corresponding
to the respective objective that are listed out at the beginning of this chapter.
The use of waste material extract as foaming agent in foamed concrete has
been studied previously and most commonly used material were fly ash and
POFA. Further, researches showed viability of bamboo composite as a
replacement for steel reinforcement. All of these material affect the
mechanical properties, particularly in term of concrete compressive strength
and splitting tensile strength.