Development of geopolymer mortar under ambient temperature for in situ applications

Mohammed Haloob Al-Majidi, Andreas Lampropoulos, Andrew Cundy, Steve Meikle

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Geopolymer concrete technology involves production of more environmentally friendly waste material-based concrete which could be a viable solution for conventional concrete replacement. Typical flyash-based geopolymer concrete however requires high temperature curing treatment in order to developsufficient early strength properties, which is considered a severe limitation for cast-in-place concreteapplications. Most previous studies on geopolymer concrete have focused on the properties of concretespre-hardened by heat curing and/or by aggressive chemical treatment (e.g. alkali activation using concen-trated sodium hydroxide (NaOH)). The current study presents an extensive experimental investigation onthe mechanical and microstructural properties of geopolymer concrete mixes prepared with a combina-tion of fly ash and slag cured under ambient temperature. ‘User friendly' geopolymer mixes were pro-duced using fly ash (FA) and Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag (GGBS) mixed together withpotassium silicate with molar ratio equal to 1.2 (as the activator) and water. The results indicated thatheat curing treatment can be avoided by partial replacement of fly ash with slag. The compressivestrength of the examined mixes was found to be in the range of 40-50 MPa for 40% and 50% GGBSreplacement mixtures respectively. Moreover, the flexural and direct tensile strengths of geopolymermixes are considerably improved as the GGBS content is increased. Based on FTIR and SEM/EDS analysis,the inclusion of a higher content of GGBS resulted in a denser structure by formation of more hydrationproducts
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)198-211
Number of pages14
JournalConstruction and Building Materials
Volume120
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 May 2016

Bibliographical note

© 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

  • Fly ash
  • Slag
  • Ambient temperature
  • User friendly geopolymer mortar

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