May  2008  

Mix design and production of flyash based geopolymer concrete

B. Vijaya Rangan

The global use of concrete is second only to water. As the demand for concrete as a construction material increases, so also the demand for Portland cement. It is estimated that the production of cement will increase from about from 1.5 billion tonnes in 1995 to 2.2 billion tonnes in 2010. On the other hand, the climate change due to global warming has become a major concern. The global warming is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), into the atmosphere by human activities. Among the greenhouse gases, CO2 contributes about 65% of global warming. The cement industry is held responsible for some of the CO2 emissions, because the production of one tonne of Portland cement emits approximately one tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere. Several efforts are in progress to supplement the use of Portland cement in concrete in order to address the global warming issues. These include the utilisation of other cementing materials such as flyash, silica fume, granulated blast furnace slag, rice husk ash and metakaolin, and the development of alternative binders to Portland cement. In this respect, the geopolymer technology proposed by Davidovits (1988; 2008) shows considerable promise for application in concrete industry to develop an alternative binder to the Portland cement. In terms of global warming, the geopolymer technology could significantly reduce the CO2 emission into the atmosphere caused by the cement industries as shown by the detailed analyses of Gartner.



















Improvement of IS 1343 procedure for estimation of ultimate moment capacity of PSC sections with bonded tendons
Shinto Paul and Devdas Menon

The prevailing version of IS 1343 (1980) needs improvement with respect to the procedure for estimating the ultimate moment capacity of prestressed concrete (PSC) sections. There is a lack of clarity in the specified typical stress-strain curves for two different types of tendons specified in the code especially with regard to the manner in which the specified partial safety factor has to be applied. The code also suggests a simplified method in Appendix B, as an alternative to more rigorous strain compatibility method for estimating the ultimate moment capacity. However, it is seen that the IS 1343 simplified procedure invariably fails to satisfy the condition of force equilibrium and also overestimates the moment capacity. These shortcomings in the code are examined and reviewed in this paper, and suitable modifications are proposed in the form of modified stress-strain curves and simplified tables for incorporation in the forthcoming revision of the code.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thermal properties of high volume flyash concrete

M. Shahiq Khan, J. Prasad and B.M. Suman

This paper describes the influence of admixture especially flyash on thermal properties of concrete. Flyash was added as replacement for cement by decreasing the cement weight in the ratios of 40, 50 and 60% by weight. The binder dosage was kept constant at 340 kg/m3 throughout this study. The amount of superplasticiser used was 1.176% by weight of cement along with crushed aggregate (12 mm). The obtained results showed that thermal conductivity and thermal transmittance decreased with the increase of flyash as replacement for cement whereas thermal resistance increased with the increase of flyash. The compressive strength increased upto 50% flyash replacement after heating to 200°C.