Mechanical Characteristics Analysis of Alkali-Activated Fly Ash Cementitious Materials

Recently, research on alkali-activated concrete that does not use cement as binder has been actively conducted. This alkali-activated concrete is a cement zero concrete which, instead of cement, is activated by alkali solution using fly ash known to be rich of Si and Al and enables to reduce effectively the emission of CO2 gas. This paper presents a basic study for the manufacture of cementless concrete using 100% of fly ash. To that goal, the mechanical characteristics of cementless concrete is evaluated according to the age and the variation of the molar concentration of the alkali activator with focus on the identification of the reaction mechanism. The experimental results show that larger molar concentration elutes larger quantities of Si4+ and Al3+. Specifically, approximately twice larger quantities of Si4+ and Al3+ were eluted for molar concentrations of 9M and 12M than 6M. The formation of gel at the surface of fly ash appeared to be caused by the stronger activation of fly ash in higher alkali environment. The resulting compressive strengths per age indicated that the strength of concrete could be controlled according to the molar concentration of NaOH. Moreover, results also demonstrated that a molar concentration of 9M for NaOH seems to be appropriate to secure a strength superior to 40MPa as the reference for high strength concrete in ordinary concrete.