Earth-Based Mortars: Mix Design, Mechanical Characterization and Environmental Performance Assessment

Author(s):  
Rayane de Lima Moura Paiva ◽  
Adriana Paiva Souza Martins ◽  
Lucas Rosse Caldas ◽  
Oscar A.M. Reales ◽  
Romildo Dias Toledo Filho

The incorporation of sustainable materials in the civil construction sector has grown in recent years to minimize environmental impacts. Among these materials, the use of earth, a local raw material that does not require much energy for its processing, appears as an advantageous and promising alternative. Earth mortars stabilized with natural binders, when compared to conventional mortars, can have technological, economic and environmental advantages. The objective of this work was to develop an earth-based mortar stabilized with mineral binders using a 1:3 binder to aggregate mass proportion, and to evaluate its fresh and hardened state properties, as well as its environmental impacts using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with a cradle to gate scope. The selected materials were divided in four groups: (i) cement, hydrated lime, fly ash and metakaolinite (binders), (ii) natural sand and coarse fraction of the earth (aggregates), (iii) calcium chloride and superplasticizer (additives) and (iv) water. In the matrix formulation the clay fraction from earth constituted the majority of the binder. The selection of supplementary cementitious materials as additional binders provided improvements in workability and mechanical properties of the mortar. A mix design was carried out using different cement (5; 7.5 and 10%) and fly ash (11; 13.5 and 16%) mass percentages. The water/binder material ratio, superplasticizer content and calcium chloride content were 0.65; 2% and 1%, respectively. The results showed that an increase in fly ash content combined with a decrease in cement content provided an increase in workability and a decrease in mechanical properties of mortars. Nevertheless, the mechanical performance of the mortars remained above the minimum values prescribed in Brazilian construction codes. From the results analysis it was concluded that partial replacement of cement by fly ash provided greater workability in the fresh state and reduced the environmental impacts of the earth-based mortar.

2019 ◽  
Vol 292 ◽  
pp. 102-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef Fládr ◽  
Petr Bílý ◽  
Karel Šeps ◽  
Roman Chylík ◽  
Vladimír Hrbek

High-performance concrete is a very specific type of concrete. Its production is sensitive to both the quality of compounds used and the order of addition of particular compounds during the homogenization process. The mechanical properties were observed for four dosing procedures of each of the three tested concrete mixtures. The four dosing procedures were identical for the three mixes. The three mixes varied only in the type of supplementary cementitious material used and in water content. The water content difference was caused by variable k-value of particular additives. The water-to-binder ratio was kept constant for all the concretes. The additives used were metakaolin, fly ash and microsilica. The comparison of particular dosing procedures was carried out on the values of basic mechanical properties of concrete. The paper compares compressive strength and depth of penetration of water under pressure. Besides the comparsion of macro-mechanical properties, the effect of microsilica and fly ash additives on micro-mechanical properties was observed with the use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and nanoindentation data analysis. Nanoindentation was used to determine the thickness and strength of interfacial transition zone (ITZ) for different sequence of addition of cement, additive and aggregate. The thickness obtained by nanoindentation was further investigated by SEM EDS line scanning.


2017 ◽  
Vol 866 ◽  
pp. 199-203
Author(s):  
Chidchanok Chainej ◽  
Suparut Narksitipan ◽  
Nittaya Jaitanong

The aims of this research were study the microstructures and mechanical properties for partial replacement of cement with Fly ash (FA) and kaolin waste (KW). Ordinary Portland cement were partially replaced with FA and KW in the range of 25-35% and 10-25% by weight of cement powder. The kaolin waste was ground for 180 minutes before using. The specimen was packing into an iron mold which sample size of 5×5×5 cm3. Then, the specimens were kept at room temperature for 24 hours and were moist cured in the incubation lime water bath at age of 3 days. After that the specimens were dry cured with plastic wrap at age of 3, 7, 14 and 28 days. After that the compounds were examined by x-ray diffraction patterns (XRD) and the microstructures were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The compressive strength was then investigated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 761 ◽  
pp. 73-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matej Špak ◽  
Pavel Raschman

Alkali-activated materials based on fly ash are widely developed and also produced on the present. Some of fly ashes are not suitable for production of alkali-activated materials because of their inconvenient chemical composition. Alumina-silicates are the most important components that are needed to accomplish the successful reaction. The proper content of amorphous phase of alumina-silicates and its proportion as well should be provided for the final composition of alkali-activated materials. The influence of pure aluminum oxide powder as well as raw milled natural perlite on mechanical properties and durability of alkali-activated mortars was investigated. These minerals were used as partial replacement of fly ash coming from black coal combustion. In addition, the mortars were prepared by using different alkali activators.


Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenhua Jin ◽  
Chang Wu ◽  
Chengcheng Feng ◽  
Qingfang Zhang ◽  
Ziheng Shangguan ◽  
...  

Strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC) is a kind of construction material that exhibits multiple cracking and strain-hardening behaviors. The partial replacement of cement with fly ash is beneficial to the formation of the tensile strain-hardening property of SHCC, the increase of environmental greenness, and the decrease of hydration heat, as well as the material cost. This study aimed to develop a sustainable construction material using a high dosage of fly ash (no less than 70% of the binder material by weight). Based on the micromechanics analysis and particle size distribution (PSD) optimization, six mixes with different fly ash to cement ratios (2.4–4.4) were designed. The mechanical properties of the developed high-volume fly ash SHCCs (HVFA-SHCCs) were investigated through tensile tests, compressive tests, and flexural tests. Test results showed that all specimens exhibited multiple cracking and strain-hardening behaviors under tension or bending, and the compressive strength of the designed mixes exceeded 30MPa at 28 days, which is suitable for structural applications. Fly ash proved to be beneficial in the improvement of tensile and flexural ductility, but an extremely high volume of fly ash can provide only limited improvement. The HVFA-SHCC mix FA3.2 (with fly ash to binder ratio of about 76% by weight) designed in this study is suggested for structural applications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 116 (7) ◽  
pp. 355-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaib Hussain ◽  
Rohama Maqsood ◽  
Muhammad Imran Din ◽  
Shahzad Maqsood Khan ◽  
Akhtar Shahnaz ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1049-1054
Author(s):  
Yunxia Lun ◽  
Fangfang Zheng

This study is aimed at exploring the effect of steel slag powder (SSP), fly ash (FA), and silica fume (SF) on the mechanical properties and durability of cement mortar. SSP, SF, and FA were used as partial replacement of the Ordinary Portland cement (OPC). It was showed that the compressive and bending strength of steel slag powder were slightly lower than that of OPC. An increase in the SSP content caused a decrease in strength. However, the growth rate of compressive strength of SSP2 (20% replacement by the weight of OPC) at the curing ages of 90 days was about 8% higher than that of OPC, and the durability of SSP2 was better than that of OPC. The combination of mineral admixtures improved the later strength, water impermeability, and sulfate resistance compared with OPC and SSP2. The compressive strength of SSPFA (SSP and SF) at 90 days reached 70.3 MPa. The results of X-ray diffraction patterns and scanning electron microscopy indicated that SSP played a synergistic role with FA or SF to improve the performance of cement mortar.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (02) ◽  
pp. 694-702
Author(s):  
K. Hariharan ◽  
◽  
A. Krishna Moorthy ◽  

The aim of the project is to replace cement with fly ash and course aggregate with Ethyl Vinyl Acetate (EVA) in paver block. In this thesis paver block design is by using cement concrete mixture of mix design M30 which is composed of 10mm coarse aggregate cement and fine aggregate (M-sand).In this thesis the cement is partially replaced with fly ash and partial replacement of EVA with coarse aggregate in paver block at various level of 5, 10, 15, and 20 percentage of its weight. The paver block curing process is done for 7days and 28days. After curing it is checked for its compression strength, water absorption test and densitytest.


2018 ◽  
Vol 199 ◽  
pp. 07006
Author(s):  
Md Shamsuddoha ◽  
Götz Hüsken ◽  
Wolfram Schmidt ◽  
Hans-Carsten Kühne ◽  
Matthias Baeßler

Grouting is a universal repair and strengthening technique, which is constantly used for structural remediation of concrete components, trenches, mine subsidence, dam joints, restoration of masonry structures, and geological stabilizations. Having an extremely small particle size of only few microns, ultrafine cements are ideal for grouting applications due to their superior permeability and compressive strength properties of the hardened cement paste compared to that of the less-expensive, but coarser ordinary Portland cements. Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) are often used to replace ultrafine cement in order to modify certain properties and to reduce costs. The aim of this experimental study is to investigate the effect of three supplementary materials: microsilica (MS), fly ash (FA), and metakaolin (MK) on the workability, and mechanical properties of an ultrafine cement based grout with a constant water-binder ratio and constant superplasticizer content. Maximum percentages of replacement with ultrafine cement were 6% by volume of cement for MS and 16% for FA, and MK. In general, results suggest that the workability is improved by addition of FA, whereas is reduced, when modified with MS and MK. The compressive strength of grout after cement replacement remains comparable to that of pure cement grout. However, there is a tendency of the MS to positively affect the compressive strength opposite to FA, whereas flexural strength is positively affected by FA. Based on the results, it is evident that grouts with Hägerman cone flow more than 500 mm and compressive strength of more than 90 MPa after 28 days can be produced.


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