A Paper On

EFFECT OF CEMENT REPLACEMENT BY

SILICA FUME AND FLY ASH

By:
Kedar Mohan Paturkar

IV th sem B.E.

G. H. Raisoni College Of Engineering, Nagpur

Email id: paturkar.kedar27@gmail.com

Contact No.: 9766038697

CONTENTS:

1)Introduction

2)Materials used and specifications

3)Chemistry of fly ash and silica fume

4)Tests on fresh concrete

5)Tests on hardened concrete

6)Results and discussions

7)Reference
 ABSTRACT
In
developed countries, use of mineral
admixtures such as fly ash and silica
fume has already adopted in making
concrete. In India too much
replacement has been already
accepted with the introduction of
ready mixed concrete and the
process has been accelerated in
recent times. Fly ash and silica fume
are two such materials that are
being used in the production of high
strength concrete. An investigation
was undertaken to study the effects
of fly ash and silica fume in concrete.
Mechanical properties at different
levels of replacements were found.
Silica fume from M/S Elkem India
Pvt.Ltd., Mumbai and fly ash from
thermal power station, were used.
Maximum size of coarse aggregate
was 12.50 mm.water to cementitious
materials ratio was 0.30 and
aggregate to cementitious material
was 3.2. World over, last three-four
decades have seen construction of
innumerable structures with concrete
compressive strength in the range of
60-100 Mpa. In India too with the
introduction of ready mixed concrete
commercially, use of these
byproducts is fast picking up. The
present trend globally is to introduce
these supplementary cementing
materials at high volumes. High
strength concrete has been accepted
as cost effective for many structural
applications.
Earlier notion of using high amounts
of cement for concrete has now
changed on favour of increased use
of high amounts of mineral
admixtures and super plasticizers
with reduced amounts of cement and
water in the concrete mixtures.
Energy plays a crucial role in growth
of developing countries, like India. In
context of low availability of
nonrecoverable energy sources
coupled with requirements of large
quantities of energy to materials like
cement, steel etc., the importance of
industrial wastes as building
materials cannot be underestimated.
In India about 110 million tones of fly
ash has been produced by 68 major
thermal power stations and are likely
to be doubled within next 10 years. It
has been a published fact from
research that waste materials like fly
ash; silica fume etc, through their
use as construction materials can be
converted into meaningful wealth.
Also, a partial replacement of
cement with fly ash is desirable, and
indeed essential due to a variety of
technical, economical and ecological
reasons. Researchers have reported
that silica fume smaller in size and
round shape fills the voids between
the coarser cement particles which
may be otherwise occupied with
water. A properly proportional fly ash
and silica fume in concrete mix
improves properties of the concrete
that may not be achievable through
the use of Portland cement alone.
The resulting concrete mix becomes
strong, durable and economical and
also eco-friendly as it utilizes an
ecological hazardous material.

MATERIALS USED –
SPECIFICATIONS
1. Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC),
53 Grade.
2. Silica fume (silicon, sio2 63.1%) as
mineral admixture (MA) in dry
densified form obtained from ELKEM
INDIA Pvt.Ltd.,
Mumbai.
3. Super plasticizer (chemical
admixture) based on Sulphonated
Napthalene Formaldehyde-
CONPLAST SP 430.
4. Locally available graded
aggregate of nominal size 12.5 mm
with specific gravity 2.68 and
fineness modulus, 5.08 for coarse
aggregate (CA).
5. Locally available river sand
confirming to Grading Zone II with
specific gravity 2.58 and fineness
modulus 2.54 for fine aggregate
(FA).
6. Water: potable water was used for
mixing concrete.
7. Fly ash from thermal power
station is used.
CHEMISTRY OF FLYASH AND
SILICA FUME
The fly ash in concrete makes
efficient use of product of hydration
of cement such as calcium hydroxide
(C-H) which is otherwise a source of
weakness in normal cement concrete
converts it into denser and stronger
C-S-H compounds by pozzolanic
reaction. The heat generated during
hydration initiates the pozzolanic
reaction of fly ash.
Silica fume is a by-product of silicon
or Ferro-Silica industry and is 100
times finer than cement. It consists
of amorphous silica and has high
reactivity towards lime. The
replacement level of silica fume is
generally
low at about 10%. When SF is used
in concrete mix, its introduction
affects the physical arrangement of
the system, particularly near the
aggregate surface where porosity
exists. Silica fume starts reacting at
the early stage of hydration process.
The pozzolanic action of silica fume
reduces substantially the quantity
and size of “CH” crystals in hydrated
cement paste. This phenomenon
along with low W/C ratio reduces the
thickness of transition zones and
thus the preferential orientation of
CH crystals is considerably reduced.
All these result in more uniform,
stronger transition zone potential of
micro cracking.
TESTS ON FRESH AND
HARDENED CONCRETE SLUMP
TEST: It is the most commonly used
method of measuring consistency of
concrete which can be employed
either in laboratory or at the site of
work. It gives an indication of
uniformity of concrete from batch to
batch.
COMPACTION FACTOR TEST:
This test works on the principle of
determining the degree of
compaction achieved by a standard
amount of work done by allowing the
concrete to fall through a standard
height. The degree of compaction
called the compacting factor is
measured by the density ratio i.e.,
the ratio of the density actually
achieved in the test to density of the
same concrete fully compacted.
Properties Of Fresh Concrete:
Compression Test: It is the most
common test conducted on the
hardened concrete, partly because
most of the desirable characteristic
properties of concrete are
quantitatively related to its
compressive strength. The
compression test is carried out on
specimens cylindrical or cubical in
shape of size 150x150x150mm.

MIX SLUMP(m COMPACTIO

m) N FACTOR
0-0 45 0.85
10-4 41 0.82
20-8 38 0.78
30- 33 0.75
12
40- 28 0.70
16
 about 5 to 12% higher value than the
direct tensile
28-DAYS CUBE AND CYLINDER strength.
COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH
28- DAYS SPLIT CYLINDER
Mi Replac Cube Cylinder
x ement Compress compres TEST RESULTS
by ive test sive test
Flyash Mix Replaceme Split
and nt by Tensile
Silica Flyash and strenght
Fumes Silica (mPa)
(%) fumes
0-0 0 57.160 45.464 0 0 4.049
10- 14 68.236 54.504 10-4 14 4.745
4 20-8 28 5.143
20- 28 69.536 55.203 30-12 42 5.34
8 40-16 56 4.316
30- 42 75.146 57.64
12
40- 56 63.106 49.946
16

FLEXURAL STRENGTH TEST: A

SPLIT CYLINDER TEST: This test
is carried out by placing the
cylindrical specimen horizontally
between the loading surfaces of a
compression testing machine and
load is applied until the failure of
cylinder along the vertical diameter.
The main advantage of this method
is that the same type of specimen
and same testing machine are used
for
compression test can be employed
for this test. Strength determined by
this test is believed to be closer to
the true tensile strength of the
concrete. Splitting strength gives
number of investigations involving
the direct measurement of tensile
strength have been made, beam
tests are found to be dependable to
measure flexural strength property
of concrete. The systems of loading
used in finding out the flexural
tension are central point loading and
third point loading. In central point
loading, maximum fibre stress will
come below the point of loading
where the bending moment is
maximum.
Mix Replaceme Flexural
nt by Strengh
Flyash and t
 Silica (mPa)
Fumes
0-0 0 6.351
10-4 14 7.327
20-8 28 7.741
30-12 42 8.539
40-16 56 6.830
 mix concretes containing micro silica
and fly ash.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1) The optimum percentage of

cement replacement by fly ash is
30% and silica fume is 12% for
achieving maximum cube
compressive strength, cylinder
compressive strength, split tensile
and beam flexural strengths.

2) With the above replacement,

concrete with a strength of 70Mpa
can be produced with water to
cementitious materials ratio of 0.3
with appropriate dosages of
compatible superplasticisers.

3) Substantial savings can be

achieved through total replacement
levels of 50-55% of cement with
locally available fly ash and silica
fume.

4) The maximum 28 days split

tensile strength was obtained with
30% fly ash 12% silicafume mix, the
strength is about 31% more at 28
days of curing compared.

5) The maximum 28 days flexural

strength was obtained again with
30% fly ash and 12% silicafume mix,
a strength gain about 34% more
than that of reference.

6) The transition zone gets improved

and densified with the use of ternary
References:

1) Wikipedia.

2) Concrete Technology by M. S.
Shetty.

3) Google.

4) Silica Fume User Manual by

American Concrete Institute.