Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Assessing some durability properties of sustainable lightweight oil

palm shell concrete incorporating slag and manufactured sand
Kim Hung Mo a, **, U. Johnson Alengaram a, *, Mohd Zamin Jumaat a,
Michael Yong Jing Liu a, James Lim b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
b
School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper explores some of the durability properties of a sustainable concrete utilizing oil palm shell
Received 7 October 2014 (OPS), which is a waste material from the palm oil industry, as lightweight coarse aggregate and man-
Received in revised form ufactured sand to replace conventional natural mining sand as ne aggregate. Ground granulated blast
4 May 2015
furnace slag (GGBS) was used at 20%, 40% and 60% cement replacement levels with the aim of reducing
Accepted 26 June 2015
Available online 3 July 2015
the cement consumption in OPS concrete (OPSC) and the effect of the GGBS on the water absorption,
sorptivity and the long-term free shrinkage of OPSC was investigated. The use of GGBS was found to
reduce the sorption of OPSC as the 90-d sorptivity values fell in the range of 0.047e0.065 mm/min0.5,
Keywords:
Ground granulated blast furnace slag
compared to 0.091 mm/min0.5 for mixes without GGBS. The OPSC containing GGBS was also found to
Lightweight concrete have initial water absorption of below 3%, which indicated good quality of concrete. In the long term
Sorption properties study, over a period of 365 d, the free shrinkage of the OPSC with up to 40% GGBS replacement level was
Shrinkage comparable to the corresponding OPSC without GGBS. The GGBS was also found to be benecial in
enhancing the long term compressive strength gain as well as lowering the strength decrease of OPSC
upon heat exposure.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Furthermore, the use of OPS as LWA in concrete was found to be

Lightweight aggregates (LWA) may be classied into two
distinct groups: articial and natural aggregates. Articial aggre-
gates are produced by thermal treatment of materials which have
expansive properties. Examples of articial aggregates include
expanded clay, shale and slate. On the other hand, natural aggre-
gates are obtained from the environment. Examples of natural
aggregates are pumice, scoria, tuff and oil palm shell (OPS)
(Chandra and Berntsson, 2002). OPS are widely available as waste
materials in South East Asian countries. In most palm oil factories,
OPS are used as solid fuels to generate electricity which causes
emission of smoke and leads to air pollution. Inconsiderate disposal
of OPS to the surrounding of the palm oil factories also contributes
to land pollution. Re-using OPS as concrete-producing material
could signicantly reduce these environmental concerns.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 60 379677632; fax: 60 379675318.
** Corresponding author. Tel.: 60 172119378.
E-mail addresses: khmo890815@gmail.com (K.H. Mo), johnson@um.edu.my
(U.J. Alengaram).
benecial in terms of thermal conductivity (Alengaram et al., 2013),
ductility (Alengaram et al., 2008), bond (Mo et al., 2015b) and shear
behaviour (Alengaram et al., 2011a) compared to conventional
concrete.
Similar to other types of LWA, OPS has a more porous structure
compared to conventional granite aggregate. As known, the porous
nature of LWA leads to greater pore area at the interfacial transition
zone (ITZ) (Lo et al., 2008). Weaker ITZ has been recognized to affect
the strength and permeation of uids, which is a signicant factor
in the durability of concrete. One of the most common external
agents entering and affecting durability of concrete is water;
penetrating water, in contact with oxygen from the surrounding
environment, can accelerate the corrosion of reinforcement bars
and therefore reduce the service life of structures.
The short-term water absorption of concrete indicates continuity
of pore system in concrete and the concrete could be vulnerable to
carbonation if found to have high permeability (Basheer et al., 2001)
and this could ultimately result in durability issues. Despite this,
investigation on the sorption properties of OPS concrete (OPSC) is
still fairly limited. Previous researcher reported that OPSC has water

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.122
0959-6526/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
764 K.H. Mo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770

absorption of around 10% (Teo et al., 2007) while recent ndings by
Shagh et al. (2013a) reported water absorption in the range of
6e9%. The higher water absorption of the OPSC could be attributed
to the presence of micro-pores on the surface of OPS (Alengaram
et al., 2011b). The addition of silica fume and y ash were found
to improve the ITZ between OPS and the cement matrix, due to the
lling ability of silica fume and y ash; this lling ability allows
penetration of mortar into the OPS pores, enhancing the strength of
the aggregateepaste interface (Alengaram et al., 2011b). The use of
mineral admixtures such as metakaolin (Guneyisi and Mermerdas,
2007; Karahan et al., 2012), silica fume (Tasdemir, 2003), rice husk
ash (Ganesan et al., 2008; Sauddin et al., 2010), bagasse ash
(Rukzon and Chindaprasirt, 2012) and oil shale ash (Chan and Ji,
1998) were found to have positive effect in reducing the water ab-
sorption of concrete. The use of ground granulated blast furnace slag
(GGBS) in conventional concrete is widespread as it enhances the
durability of concrete through pore renement and has the capa-
bility for continued long term pozzolanic reaction or hydration.
Researchers reported improvement of sorption properties of normal
weight concrete (NWC) using high volumes of GGBS of up to 50%
(Guneyisi and Gesoglu, 2008; Hadj-sadok et al., 2011; Hadjsadok
et al., 2012). The use of high volume of GGBS as a cement replace-
ment material is also benecial in terms of environmental consid-
erations as the reduction in cement content decreases the carbon
footprint (Mo et al., 2014).
The use of mineral admixture as a partial cement replacement
generally affects the rate of hydration of concrete due to the
pozzolanic nature of these admixtures. A lower rate of hydration
of concrete results in coarser and higher number of pores. Since
the degree of hydration is one of the factors that affect the free
shrinkage of concrete (Shagh et al., 2013a), the effect of mineral
admixture on the free shrinkage is of signicant importance.
Furthermore, the use of LWA is known to increase the free
shrinkage of concrete (Chandra and Berntsson, 2002) compared
to NWC and such observation was also reported for OPSC
(Mannan and Ganapathy, 2002; Mo et al., 2015b). As reported by
Shagh et al. (2013a), the use of mineral admixture in the OPSC
had a slightly negative effect on the shrinkage of OPSC when y
ash was used as a partial cement replacement; however, the
shrinkage would increase if a higher replacement level of y ash
was used. The effect of shrinkage of GGBS-blended concrete,
particularly at a high replacement level on conventional con-
crete, has not previously been explored thoroughly; while there
is no literature available on the effect of GGBS on the free
shrinkage for the OPSC.
In order to produce an environmentally sustainable concrete,
aside from the use of OPS as coarse aggregate and GGBS as
cement replacement material, conventional sand could also be
replaced with alternate materials. The quarrying of natural sand
results in a number of environmental issues, such as lowering of
the ground water level, destruction of natural habitats, soil
erosion etc. Furthermore, the use of natural sand has other
concerns such as limited supply, source location, and the pres-
ence of impurities. Such concerns cause the demand for a more
centrifuged to obtain rounded particles; the resulting product is
known as manufactured sand (M-sand). M-sand is readily avail-
able and its quality controlled process would enable it to be used
as a replacement for conventional sand. Recent research shows
that the use of M-sand as a complete replacement of natural
sand was possible without any signicant detrimental effect on
the compressive strength of concrete (Nanthagopalan and
Santhanam, 2011; Foong et al., 2015).
In the present investigation, GGBS and M-sand are used in the
development of OPSC to produce a more sustainable green con-
crete. As previous investigations have dealt with the mechanical
properties (Mo et al., 2014) and structural performance (Mo et al.,
2015a) of the GGBS-blended OPSC, this investigation focuses on
the effect of GGBS on some durability properties of OPSC, such as
sorption, strength and shrinkage properties, since all of these
properties are related to the pore structure and subsequently
durability of the concrete. The variables investigated in this
research include the percentage of cement replacement by GGBS
(0%, 20%, 40% and 60%). As the use of GGBS is commonly associ-
ated with concrete properties at later ages, studies on the water
absorption, sorptivity and residual strength of OPSC were con-
ducted up to 90 d whereas the compressive strength and free
shrinkage performances of OPSC up until the age of 365 d were
investigated.
2. Experimental program
2.1. Materials
2.1.1. Binder
Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) with specic gravity of 3.10
and specic surface area of 352 m2 kg1 was used in this study;
GGBS with specic gravity of around 2.90 and specic surface area
of 405 m2 kg1 was used as partial cement replacement. The
chemical compositions of OPC and GGBS are listed in Table 1.
2.1.2. Aggregates
M-sand (specic gravity: 2.56) of size between 300 mm and
5 mm was used as ne aggregate while uncrushed OPS (specic
gravity: 1.30) with sizes between 2.36 and 14 mm was used as
coarse aggregates. The OPS had compacted bulk density of
658 kg m3 and loose bulk density of 590 kg m3 while the 24-h
water absorption of the OPS aggregate was 25%. Prior to casting,
the OPS were pre-soaked in water for 24 h and then air dried to
achieve a saturated surface dry condition. The particle size dis-
tribution curves of M-sand, normal sand and OPS are shown in
Fig. 1. As shown, the M-sand used in this study had similar
grading as conventional mining sand, which indicates its suit-
ability to be used as full replacement of the latter.
Table 1
Oxide composition of OPC and GGBS (%).

consistent supply, controlled quality and environmentally Chemical composition OPC GGBS
friendly sand. Researchers have attempted to utilize recycled SiO2 19.8 33.8
sand from construction waste (Ledesma et al., 2015) as well as Fe2O3 3.10 0.52
crushed glass aggregates as partial ne aggregate replacement CaO 63.4 43.9
(de Castro and de Brito, 2013) but found decrease in the Na2O 0.19 0.20
MgO 2.50 5.40
compressive strength upon increased replacement level. There
Al2O3 5.10 13.40
have also been attempts to use the waste material from the SO3 2.40 0.10
quarrying industry, commonly known as quarry rock dust or K2O 1.00 0.31
quarry dust, as a replacement for conventional sand. However, TiO2 e 0.55
the quarry dust has angular particles that might hamper work- Mn2O3 e 0.30
Loss on ignition (LOI) 1.80 1.00
ability. In order to remove the angular particles, the particles are
 K.H. Mo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770 765

test. Similar test was also carried out by Gunasekaran et al. (2013)
for lightweight coconut shell concrete.

2.3.3. Water absorption

Fig. 1. Particle size distribution.
2.1.3. Superplasticizer and water
The superplasticizer (SP) used in this study was polycarboxylic-
ether (PCE) based, with a commercial name of Glenium Ace 388 and
supplied by BASF Sdn Bhd. The SP was used at 1.0% by mass of
binder for all mixes. Potable water, free from contaminants and
impurities was used for concrete mixes.
2.2. Mix proportion and procedure
Four concrete mixes were prepared for this investigation with
different replacement levels of OPC by GGBS, namely 0% (SL0), 20%
(SL20), 40% (SL40) and 60% (SL60). The mix proportions are given in
Table 2.
In the mixing process, OPS and M-sand were dry mixed, fol-
lowed by the addition of OPC and GGBS. Wet mixing was done with
the addition of the mixing water and SP. The concrete was poured
into the moulds and compaction was carried out using a vibration
table. All the specimens were de-moulded after 24 h and placed in
water curing tank until the age of testing.
The water absorption test was done on a concrete disc specimen
of 100 mm diameter (f)  50 mm thick, in accordance to ASTM
C642, at the ages of 28- and 90-d. The disc specimens were ob-
tained by cutting the 100 mm f  200 mm height cylindrical
specimens that were moist cured. The disc specimen was then
oven-dried at 105 5  C for 48 h until constant mass was achieved.
The specimens were then allowed to cool to room temperature
before being immersed in water. The specimens were wiped off
using cloth to remove any excess water on the surface of the
specimen and the weight of the specimens was observed. The
weights of the specimens were taken after 30 min and 72 h after
immersion for the determination of initial and nal water ab-
sorptions, respectively. The water absorption was taken as:
Water absorption ws  wd =wd  100% (1)
where ws saturated surface dry mass (g) of specimen in air
(30 min and 72 h), wd oven dry mass (g) of specimen in air
2.3.4. Sorptivity
Sorptivity characterizes the ability of concrete to absorb and
transmit water through capillary suction. The sorptivity test was
carried out based on the procedure set out by previous researchers
(Hadjsadok et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2014) and the set-up is shown in
Fig. 2. The test was conducted on 28- and 90-d water cured 100 mm
cube specimens. Before the test, the specimens were oven dried at a
temperature of 105 5  C for 48 h until constant mass was ach-
ieved. After cooling to room temperature, the sides of the speci-
mens were sealed with a plastic lm and placed in a tray such that
the bottom surface of the specimens was in contact with water up
to a height of 5 mm. The specimens were weighed at intervals of 1,
4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49 and 64 min. The sorptivity was then calculated
from the experimental results using the following equation:

2.3. Test method

i A s$t0:5 (2)
2.3.1. Compressive strength where i cumulative volume of water absorbed (mm3),
The compressive strength test was conducted on 100 mm cube s sorptivity coefcient (mm/min0.5), A constant which takes
at the ages of 28, 56, 90 and 365 d using a Universal Testing Ma- into account effect of initial water lling at concrete surface,
chine. The compressive strength test was done in accordance to BS t time (min)
EN 12390-3: 2002.

2.3.5. Free shrinkage

2.3.2. Residual strength
The concrete specimens were taken out after 90 d of moist
curing and subjected to heat exposure in an electric oven. After
keeping the concrete specimens in the oven, the oven was switched
on and the temperature was raised to 200 5  C and maintained for
4 h. Then the oven was then switched off and the specimens were
allowed to cool in the oven for 24 h. The residual strength was
determined by subjecting the specimen to compressive strength
The prisms of dimensions 75  75  300 mm3 were moist cured
for 7 d prior to the free shrinkage test. The Demountable Me-
chanical (DEMEC) strain gauge studs were attached on the spec-
imen. The free shrinkage specimens were then kept in a room in
which the temperature and humidity were maintained at 20 2  C
and 60 5%. The observations on the initial position of DEMEC
studs were taken using a length comparator. The change in length

Table 2
Mix proportions.

Mix Material (kg m3)

OPC GGBS OPS M-sand Water

SL0 550 0 355 935 180

SL20 440 110 355 935 180
SL40 330 220 355 935 180
SL60 220 330 355 935 180
Fig. 2. Sorptivity test set-up.
766 K.H. Mo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770

of the specimens was measured continuously up to 365 d for the
determination of the free shrinkage of concrete.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Compressive strength
The cube compressive strength test results of all mixes are
shown in Table 3 and were in the range of 37e48 GPa. It is worth
noting that the whole replacement of conventional sand with M-
sand produced comparable strength to that of Shagh et al. (2013b)
using conventional mining sand. This implies that the whole
replacement of conventional mining sand with M-sand in the OPSC
is a possibility and this could pave way to develop more environ-
mental friendly green concrete using M-sand. Similar ndings on
the replacement of conventional sand with M-sand, without any
adverse effect on the strength, has been reported for self-
compacting concrete (Nanthagopalan and Santhanam, 2011).
As seen from Table 3, the strength gain in the GGBS-blended
OPSC after 28 d slowed down with only 1e5% at 56 d, 2e5% at
90 d and further increase to 3e10% at 365 d; such a slow rate of
strength gain was reported elsewhere for GGBS-blended OPSC
under continuous moist curing (Shagh et al., 2013b). The control
mix SL0 had insignicant strength gain after 28 d and this could be
attributed to slow rate of hydration after 28 d and the use of low
water to binder (w/b) ratio of 0.33. On the other hand, there was a
slight increase in the compressive strength for mixes SL20, SL40
and SL60 upon prolonged curing compared to the control mix. This
could be due to the continuous hydration process of GGBS con-
taining siliceous (S) material, in which, along with water, it reacts
with calcium hydroxide (CH) to form the calcium silicate hydrate
(CeSeH) gel (equation (3)).
CH S water / CeSeH
In addition, the use of GGBS has ller effect (Elahi et al., 2010)
and as a result, ner pore size distribution and reduced capillary
pores could be achieved (Sengul and Tasdemir, 2009). Oner and
Akyuz (2007) found that as GGBS content is increased to 60%, the
strength gain increased over a period of 365 d. Although the OPSC
containing GGBS had increased strength gain at later ages
compared to the control OPSC without GGBS, it should be noted
that this increase was slight. The contributory factor could be due to
the low w/b ratio used that prevented further cement hydration,
and in turn reduced the by-product CH, which was required for
GGBS hydration.
3.2. Residual strength
collapse of structures could be avoided in the event of re. Although
concrete made with LWA is known to have superior re resistance
performance compared to conventional NWC, similar to coconut
shell, OPS contains organic matter and could be susceptible to
deterioration of the aggregate at high temperatures (Gunasekaran
et al., 2013). Therefore, in this investigation, the effect of GGBS on
the compressive strength of OPSC upon heat exposure up to
moderately elevated temperature of about 200  C was investigated
and the objective was to provide a preliminary study of heat effect
on OPSC.
All of the mixes suffered drop in the compressive strength of
about 55e65% upon heat exposure and the residual strengths were
within the range of 15e17 MPa as shown in Table 3. The strength
loss as found in this investigation for the OPSC was comparatively
higher than the NWC prepared using limestone aggregate; the loss
of strength was reported to be about 20% for specimens subjected
to similar temperature (Ahmed et al., 1992). The loss of strength at
such elevated temperature could be caused by thermal in-
compatibility due to difference between the coefcient of thermal
expansion of paste and aggregate, thus inducing thermal stresses.
The induced stress leads to weakening of the ITZ and caused
strength loss (Ahmed et al., 1992). The low stiffness of OPS aggre-
gates might have caused more expansion of aggregates when
subjected to increased temperature, leading to a weaker bond be-
tween the aggregate and paste and as a consequence higher
compressive strength loss was found in the OPSC compared to that
of conventional concrete of about 10e20%, as reported by
Noumowe et al. (2009). However, despite the higher reduction in
the compressive strength, there was no evidence of any visible
cracks and physical disintegration of the OPSC specimen. As shown
in Table 3 and Fig. 3, mix SL20 with 20% GGBS had the highest re-
sidual strength. Similar ndings, albeit for NWC, was reported by
Siddique and Kaur (2012) for heat exposure at the same elevated
(3) temperature of 200  C. However, when the percentage of GGBS was
increased, lower strength drop was observed. The percentage in
strength loss was about 65%, 62%, 63% and 55% for 0%, 20%, 40% and
60% GGBS, respectively. The improved performance of the speci-
mens with high percentage of GGBS could be attributed to
enhanced microstructure of the ITZ by GGBS that offer resistance to
crack when subjected to heating (Gao et al., 2012). Wang (2008)
also found that the use of GGBS as cement replacement material
could improve the re resistance of concrete.
3.3. Water absorption by immersion
The water absorption by immersion test was done to measure
the permeability of OPSC. The permeability was determined by the

It is vital for structural members to have sufcient residual

strength to sustain loads upon heat exposure so that catastrophic

Table 3
Compressive strength and residual strength of OPSC.

Mix Compressive strength (MPa)a Residual

strength (MPa)b

28-d 56-d 90-d 365-d 90-d

SL0 45.1 45.3 (101%) 46.0 (102%) 46.3 (103%) 16.1 (65%)
SL20 44.3 45.3 (102%) 45.8 (104%) 47.9 (108%) 17.4 (62%)
SL40 40.5 42.3 (105%) 42.4 (105%) 44.4 (110%) 15.7 (63%)
SL60 37.2 37.4 (101%) 37.8 (102%) 39.6 (106%) 16.9 (55%)
a
Parentheses under column represents ratio of compressive strength at given age
to the compressive strength as of 28-d.
b
Parentheses under column represents percentage reduction in the corre-
sponding compressive strength after heat exposure. Fig. 3. Compressive and residual strengths of OPSC.
 K.H. Mo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770
Table 4
Initial and nal water absorption of OPSC.
Mix Initial water absorption (%) Final water absorption (%)
28 d 90 d 28 d
SL0 3.37 3.06 7.76
SL20 2.72 2.56 7.56
SL40 2.66 2.29 7.51
SL60 2.93 2.61 7.65
amount of water-permeable pores present in the specimens. The
water absorption test can therefore be used as a criterion for con-
crete durability as it is related to the characteristics of pore struc-
ture of concrete. The more open the pore structure of concrete, the
vulnerability towards the penetration of deleterious external
agents is high (De Schutter and Audenaert, 2004). The water ab-
sorption therefore characterizes the open porosity of concrete
(Andre et al., 2014). The initial and nal water absorption results of
the OPSC with and without GGBS are presented in Table 4. The
initial water absorption for the mixes were in the range of 2.7e3.4%
at 28 d and 2.3e3.1% at 90 d while the nal water absorption of the
mixes were found in the range of 7.5e7.8% at 28 d and 6.4e7.3% at
90 d. In previous studies involving lightweight OPS aggregates,
Shagh et al. (2013a) reported the nal water absorption of OPSC
produced with y ash to be in the range of 6.5e9%, whilst Teo et al.
(2007) reported the nal water absorption of about 10% for the
OPSC. Topcu and Uygunoglu (2010) reported water absorption of
about 15.1e21.8%, 13.7e16.4% and 21.5e25.6% for lightweight ag-
gregates pumice, tuff and diatomite concretes.
The initial water absorption of the OPSC specimens was found
to decrease due to the use of GGBS as cement replacement. All
the replacement levels showed lower initial water absorption
values compared to the control concrete at both 28 and 90 d. The
initial water absorption vales of all the GGBS-blended OPSC
mixes were below the upper limit of 3% as specied by CEB for
good concrete. At both ages, as the GGBS replacement levels
were increased up to 40%, the initial water absorption reduced.
However, when the replacement level was increased to 60%, the
initial water absorption also increased and exceeded the ab-
sorption as that of 20% replacement level; nevertheless it was
still lower than that of the control mix SL0. Similar observation
was found for the nal water absorption, which was taken after
72 h of immersion. As shown in Fig. 4, the increment of GGBS up
to 40% led to reduced water absorption as reported by other
researchers (Guneyisi and Gesoglu, 2008; Condren and Pavia,
2007). This could be attributed to the denser pore structure
Fig. 4. Relationship between GGBS replacement level and nal water absorption.
767
that would inhibit ingress of water into the pore system. The
GGBS could enhance the ITZ between the OPS and the cement
matrix by lling up the micro-pores found on the surfaces of the
90 d
OPS aggregates. Further, the advantage of the use of GGBS is its
ability to reduce the pore volume and sizes in the cement matrix.
7.27
This is done by the segmentation of large pores and increase of
6.69
6.38 nucleation sites for precipitation of hydration products in cement
7.16 paste (Chindaprasirt and Rukzon, 2008). This also results in the
reduction of pore sizes and CH. It could be seen from the results
in Fig. 4 that the optimum content of GGBS was found to be 40%
in terms of reducing water absorption of OPSC; increase of GGBS
beyond this level to replace cement, however, led to an increased
water absorption and this could be due to the lack of CH available
to react with the excess GGBS, resulting in increased in larger
porosity in the concrete.
The effect of curing period in the nal water absorption was also
observed. In the control mix SL0, there is little difference observed
for the water absorption between 28 and 90 d. However, the 90-
d nal water absorption of the mixes SL20 and SL40 experienced
signicant reduction from the 28-d nal water absorption, as
shown in Fig. 4. Therefore, the performance of GGBS-blended OPSC
was more evident at later age compared to 28 d. One possible
explanation could be the low permeability and porosity due to the
continuous hydration of GGBS in the GGBS-blended OPSC mixes
over the curing period while the hydration of cement in the control
mix SL0 could be almost completed by 28 d and therefore did not
show signicant reduction in water absorption.
3.4. Sorptivity
The sorptivity test characterizes the ability of concrete to absorb
and transmit water through it by capillary suction (Sabir et al.,
1998). This is especially important for super-structure as due to
the absence of water pressure, the water and salt ingress is mainly
controlled by absorption. In addition, if there is any leakage through
joints and defects, the ingress of deleterious agents could lead to
premature deterioration of structural elements. The sorptivity of
concrete determines the progressive transport of these external
agents to the interior part of the structural elements, thus affecting
its durability which could cause deterioration in the concrete per-
formance over time (Zong et al., 2014).
The 28- and 90-d sorptivity values of the control OPSC was
found about 0.099 mm/min0.5 and 0.091 mm/min0.5. The sorptivity
value of the control OPSC in this study was slightly lower compared
to the value of 0.109 mm/min0.5 obtained by Liu et al. (2014) for
lightweight OPS geopolymer concrete. For other types of LWA, Lo
et al. (2006) obtained a sorptivity value of 0.12 mm/min0.5 for
lightweight expanded clay aggregate with a w/b ratio of 0.40 while
Bozkurt and Yazicioglu (2010) reported the 28-d sorptivity value to
be 0.196 mm/min0.5 using lightweight pumice aggregate at w/b
ratio of about 0.65. According to Neville (1995), typical sorptivity
value for NWC with w/b ratio of 0.4 was 0.09 mm/min0.5 and the
sorptivity value of 0.17 mm/min0.5 for NWC with w/b ratio of 0.6.
Thus, it can be seen from the published results that the sorptivity of
concrete prepared with LWA is slightly higher compared to NWC
and it is logical to assume that the more porous LWA compared to
conventional coarse aggregates would lead to higher sorptivity.
However, it was also observed that the w/b ratio had more pro-
nounced effect on the sorptivity. Hence, it is appropriate to
compare the sorptivity among the mixes as the w/b ratio varied in
different researches.
The effect of GGBS on the sorptivity over a curing period of
90-d can be seen from the test results of the GGBS-blended
OPSC; as can be seen, there was a signicant reduction. How-
ever, the control OPSC showed only a slight difference during the
768 K.H. Mo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770
same curing period. Similar effect of GGBS on the high perfor-
mance concrete was also reported by Elahi et al. (2010). The
reduction in the sorptivity due to the addition of GGBS could be
attributed to its continuous hydration during the prolonged
curing period that reduces the pore spaces in the OPSC. On the
other hand, the early hydration of cement that is near to
completion during the 28 d of curing and the subsequent slow
hydration could leave pores in the concrete. Fig. 5 shows that the
sorptivity of the OPSC reduces at all levels of GGBS replacement.
The sorptivity of GGBS-blended OPSC was found in the range of
0.073e0.087 mm/min0.5 at 28 d and 0.047e0.065 mm/min0.5 at
90 d compared to the control with sorptivity of 0.099 and
0.091 mm/min0.5, correspondingly. Guneyisi and Gesoglu (2008)
also reported the effectiveness of GGBS in reducing the sorptivity
of concrete and shown sorptivity of 0.152e0.176 mm/min0.5 and
0.082e0.117 mm/min0.5 compared to the sorptivity of 0.200 mm/
min0.5 and 0.166 mm/min0.5 for control concretes at the age of 28
and 90 d, correspondingly. Other researchers (Alexander and
Magee, 1999; Hadjsadok et al., 2012) also experimented and re-
ported the benecial effect of GGBS in reducing sorptivity of
concrete. The reduction can be explained by the more rened
pore structures that lead to blockage of capillary and disconti-
nuity of capillary porosity, which has an effect in minimizing the
sorptivity of the concrete. This investigation shows that the 40%
of GGBS replacement has been more effective as it produced
lower sorptivity compared to 60%; though the sorptivity of the
GGBS-blended OPSC with 60% replacement was higher, it was
still lower than that of the control concrete. This suggests that
the mix with 40% GGBS replacement level could be considered as
optimum in terms of improving the pore structure of the OPSC
and this replacement level has been reported to enhance the
microstructure of NWC (Gao et al., 2005).
It should be noted that the reductions in the water absorption
and sorptivity values of OPSC at later stages in the presence of
GGBS were not reected with an increase in the compressive
strength. A possible explanation is that as the concrete aged, the
pore renement effect of GGBS led to more signicant improve-
ment in the durability properties compared to the compressive
strength of OPSC. Another reason could be the strength limitation
due to the OPS aggregates. As found by Teo et al. (2006), at later
ages the failure of OPSC was largely due to the crack path through
the aggregates instead of around them; thus the compressive
strength of OPSC at this stage could be only governed by the
strength of the aggregates in which the GGBS had little effect on.
In contrast, the durability properties of OPSC at this stage were
further improved due to the continuous pore renement effect of
GGBS in the cement matrix.
Fig. 5. Relationship between GGBS replacement level and sorptivity.
3.5. Free shrinkage
Excessive shrinkage in concrete is a cause for concern in the
design of structural elements as if it is not adequately controlled, it
will cause deleterious cracks, harmful stresses and disintegration of
concrete, leading to reduction of the service life of the structure.
Concrete made with LWA was reportedly found to have higher
shrinkage compared to the conventional NWC (Chandra and
Berntsson, 2002). The shrinkage of LWC can be 50% higher than
NWC (Neville, 1995). In this study, the free shrinkage of the OPSC
after 365 d ranged between 715 and 925 micro-strains. The high
shrinkage values of OPSC could be due to the lower stiffness of OPS,
which offered less restraint towards the shrinkage process whereas
conventional coarse aggregate restraint the movement due to its
rigidity. Tang et al. (2008) and Demirboga and Kan (2012) also
opined the low stiffness of polystyrene aggregate for high
shrinkage in the lightweight polystyrene aggregate concrete.
Furthermore, the smooth convex surface of OPS aggregate also
contributed to the shrinkage of OPSC as smoother surface of
aggregate provide less resistant towards shrinkage movement,
especially during an early age (Tang et al., 2008). Researchers also
reported high free shrinkage strain values for lightweight aggregate
concrete that ranged from 400 to 600, 500 to 1,000, and 900 to
1400 micro-strains for pumice aggregates (Hossain, 2004), poly-
styrene aggregates (Tang et al., 2008) and cold-bonded y ash ag-
gregates (Gesoglu et al., 2006), respectively.
During the early stages up to 28 d, the free shrinkage of the mix
SL60 produced the highest strains followed by SL40, SL20 and SL0.
The highest free shrinkage of 800 micro-strains for the mix SL60
could also be due to its slower hydration in the initial stage that
caused coarser and higher number of pores in the mix. The likeli-
hood of pores present in the mix SL60 due to the slow hydration
could enable the free water to escape through the pores that lead to
high free shrinkage. Furthermore, due to slow hydration in the mix
SL60, a low amount of free water could have been used for the
hydration of GGBS, leading to some free water left for diffusion into
the environment, thus contributing to higher free shrinkage. After
the age of 28 d, there was a decrease in the rate of the shrinkage
increment for the mixes SL20 and SL40 and this could be due to the
improved pore structure in these mixes which restricted the
evaporation of water through the pores. Upon further drying up
until the age of 365 d, the free shrinkage strains of the mixes SL0,
SL20 and SL40 were almost identical and ranged between 715 and
760 micro-strains as shown in Fig. 6. This is in line with the pre-
vious report by Akcaozoglu and Atis (2011) which suggested that
the use of GGBS causes little effect in the free shrinkage of concrete.
However, in the present investigation, the addition of replacement
Fig. 6. Free shrinkage of OPSC with and without GGBS.
 K.H. Mo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 112 (2016) 763e770
level of GGBS to 60% was found to increase the shrinkage of the
OPSC by about 20% and this is in consistent with the free shrinkage
of OPSC with y ash reported previously (Shagh et al., 2013a).
4. Conclusions
Based on the experimental works carried out to investigate the
effect of different levels of cement replacement with GGBS in OPSC,
the following conclusions can be drawn:
a. The use of GGBS as partial cement replacement in the OPSC
produced increased compressive strength gain compared to
OPSC without any GGBS over the curing period of 365 d. All the
mixes experienced strength loss of about 55e65% when sub-
jected to heat exposure of 200  C. However, the increase in GGBS
replacement at 60% was found to be most effective in mini-
mizing the strength loss.
b. The water absorption of the OPSC at 28 and 90 d was found to be
in the range of 7.5e7.8% and 6.3e7.3%. The OPSC with 40% GGBS
performed best in reducing the water absorption of OSPC due to
decrease in permeable pores.
c. Similar to water absorption, the sorptivity of OPSC reduced with
an increase in the curing period. The effect of GGBS in reducing
the sorptivity of the OPSC through rening of the pore structure
and discontinuity of pores could be realised through the
decrease in the sorptivity. The decrease in the sorptivity from
0.10 to about 0.07 and 0.05 mm/min0.5 at 28 and 90 d could be
attributed to the effect of GGBS and the optimum content of 40%
in terms of reduction in the sorptivity for OPSC is recommended.
d. The free shrinkage values of about 740e760 micro-strains at
GGBS replacement levels of 20% and 40% was close to that of the
control OPSC. The increased in GGBS replacement level at 60%
led to an increase of about 20% in the free shrinkage value.
e. The test results on the strength gain, residual strength, water
absorption, sorptivity and long-term free shrinkage proved that
the use of GGBS as high volume cement replacement in OPSC is
benecial at later stages compared to the OPSC without GGBS.
Acknowledgement
This research work was funded by the University of Malaya
under the High Impact Research Grant (HIRG) No. UM.C/HIR/
MOHE/ENG/02/D000002-16001 (Synthesis of Blast Resistant
Structures). The authors are grateful to YTL Cement Bhd Group for
the supply of GGBS used in this study.
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