UKIERI __________________________________________________________________________________________ Concrete Congress - Innovations in Concrete Construction

WORKABILITY OF SELF COMPACTING CONCRETE CONTAINING RICE HUSK ASH

Dilraj Singh1, S P Singh1, Rizwan Khan1, Sarvesh Kumar2

1. Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar, India 2. Punjab Agricultural University Ludhiana, India

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a study on the fresh properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC) incorporating rice husk ash (RHA) as partial replacement of cement. The percentage of the RHA was varied from 0-20%. The fresh properties of SCC were checked by various tests like Slump Flow test, V-Funnel test, L-box test and J-Ring Test. The effect of variation of RHA content on the super-plasticizer dosage was observed keeping the water/binder ratio constant at 0.41. The mechanical properties like compressive strength and tensile strength were also found at different days of curing. It was observed that the workability decreased with increase in proportion of RHA in the mixes because the dosage of super-plasticizer needs a check to avoid segregation in the form of bleeding. Keywords: Fly ash, Rice husk ash, Cement replacement, Self compacting concrete, Workability

Dilraj Singh is a Research Scholar in the Department of Civil engineering at Dr. B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, India. His research interest includes properties of concrete composites including durability Dr Rizwan Khan is Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar, India. His research interests include the analysis of off-shore structures, concrete composites. Dr S P Singh is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology Jalandhar, India. His research interests are fatigue behaviour of concrete composites and recycling of materials in concrete. Sarvesh Kumar is Assistant Professor in the College of Agricultural and Engineering Technology at PAU, Ludhiana, India. His research interests are permeability of fibre reinforced concrete and concrete composites etc.

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INTRODUCTION
Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a form of concrete that is able to flow under its own weight and completely fills the formwork even in the presence of dense reinforcement, without the need of any vibration, whilst maintaining homogeneity. It was originally developed in Japan 2 decades ago to off-set a growing shortage of skilled labour. At required levels, fresh self-compacting concrete must possess the following key properties:(i) Filling ability: This is the ability of self-compacting concrete flowing into all spaces within the formwork under its own weight. (ii) Passing ability: This is the ability of self-compacting concrete flowing under its own weight, through tight openings such as spaces between steel reinforcing bars. (iii) Resistance to segregation: This is the ability of self-compacting concrete remaining homogenous in composition during transport and placing. There has been a lot of research in the self-compacting concrete area. Khatib (2007) and Maio Liu (2010) observed that replacing fly ash with cement in SCC up to 80% gives good workability results. Memon et al. (2010) and Safiuddin et al. (2010) studied the fresh properties of SCC incorporating Rice Husk Ash and found that the Rice Husk Ash can easily replace cement in SCC and give good workability properties. In this paper fly ash was replaced by rice husk ash from 0-20% in SCC and the workability properties of SCC was observed using Slump flow test, V-funnel test, J Ring test and L-box test.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY Materials Cement: Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) (43 Grade) with specific gravity 3.15 confirming to IS 8112:1989. Fine aggregate: Sand made of crushed aggregates was used as fine aggregates. Specific gravity of sand was 2.67 and bulk density 1675 Kg/m3. Coarse aggregate: Locally available crushed stone aggregates of 12.5 mm nominal maximum size with specific gravity 2.64 and bulk density 1690 Kg/m3. Fly ash: Class F Fly ash obtained from Guru Gobind Singh super thermal plant in Ropar with a specific gravity of 2.33. Water: Potable water for mixing and curing of concrete specimens was used. Rice Husk Ash (RHA): Locally available RHA was used after passing through sieve of 90 mm. Super-Plasticizer: Modified Poly-carboxylates type Super-plasticizer of commercial name Sika Viscocrete 20-HE manufactured by Sika. Relative density of Super-Plasticizer was 1.08 at 30C.

Mix Design and Combinations The mix proportions of the different materials used are given below in the Table 1. This mix design was prepared after modifications of the mix design got from Su Nans (2001) Mix design method.
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Table 1 Mix proportions used (Kg/m3)

CEMENT FLY ASH FINE AGGREGATES COARSE AGGREGATES WATER SP DOSAGE

420

180

882

530

246

4.20

Five different combinations of binders were prepared keeping the all other parameters constant, as given in Table 2. Table 2 Mix combinations (%)
MIX NO. OPC (%) FLY ASH (%) RICE HUSK ASH (%)

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5

70 70 70 70 70

30 25 20 15 10

0 5 10 15 20

Testing the Properties of fresh concrete For determining the self-compacting properties; slump flow, T50 cm time, J-ring flow, V-funnel flow times and L-box blocking ratio tests were performed according to EFNARC Specifications [12]. In order to reduce the effect of workability loss on variability of test results, fresh state properties of mixes were determined within a period of 30 min after mixing. The order of testing was as below, respectively. 1. Slump flow test and measurement of T50cm time; 2. J-ring flow test and measurement of difference in height of concrete inside and outside the Jring; 3. V-funnel flow tests, Time just after filling completely and 5 min T5min; 4. L-box test.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

After performing the workability tests the results came are described in table 3. The table contains V-funnel time, Slump flow diameter, J-ring test value, L- box height ratios, Slump flow time to cross 500 mm diameter and V-funnel time after 5 min.

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Table 3 Workability tests values

V-FUNNEL TIME (SEC) SLUMP FLOW DIA. (MM) J-RING (MM) SLUMP FLOW TIME T500 (SEC) L-BOX (H2/H1) V-FUNNEL TIME AFTER 5 MIN. (SEC)

MIX

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5

6.1 7.2 7.9 8.4 6.8

778 738 709 668 660

6 7 8 9 7

2.9 3.3 3.6 3.7 3.3

1.0 0.98 0.96 0.92 0.90

8.9 10.1 10.7 11.2 11.6

All the above values suggest that as we increase the percentage of RHA in the SCC the mix becomes dense and hence workability reduces. But it was also noticed that the bleeding was shown in mixes M1 and M2. But after increasing the percentage of RHA above 5 %, even negligible bleeding was not there.

CONCLUSIONS
1. All the five mixes passed the workability requirements specified by EFNARC, thus the replacement of cement by RHA up to 20 % is possible. 2. There was decrease in workability as we increase the percentage of RHA in the mix. 3. The mix M5 was the most dense mix with 20% RHA values and the M1 mix with 0% RHA was least dense and shown little bleeding too. 4. The use of RHA as a partial replacement of cement ended the need of Viscosity modifying agent by ceasing the bleeding the mix completely.

REFERENCES
1. KHATIB J M, Performance of self-compacting concrete containing fly ash, Construction and Building Materials, Vol. 22, 2007, pp 19631971. 2. MIAO L, Self-compacting concrete with different levels of pulverized fuel ash, Construction and Building Materials, Vol. 24, 2010, pp 12451252. 3. ALI M S, ALI S M AND HASSAN A, Utilization of Rice Husk Ash as viscosity modifying agent in Self Compacting Concrete, Construction and Building Materials, 2010.
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4. SAFIUDDIN MD , WEST J.S AND SOUDKI K.A, Flowing ability of the mortars formulated from self-compacting concretes incorporating rice husk ash, Construction and Building Materials, 2010. 5. SU N, SU K C H AND CHAI H-W, A simple mix design method for self-compacting concrete, Cement and Concrete Research, Vol. 31, 2001, pp 17991807. 6. The European Guidelines for Self Compacting Concrete, EFNARC, 2002.

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