Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering & Sciences Publication Pvt. Ltd. Strength Studies on Metakaolin Blended

Abstract — The usage of blended cement is growing rapidly in construction industry due to the considerations of cost saving and environmental protection. The addition of fly ash in concrete improves certain properties such as workability, later age strength development and few durability characteristics. The major disadvantage observed in such concrete is the slower development of strength. This drawback can be addressed by adding superpozzolanic materials such as silica fume, Metakaolin and rice husk ash. This report presents the results of an experimental investigation dealing with concrete incorporating high volumes of Class F Fly Ash and Metakaolin as a partial replacement of ordinary Portland cement. Portland cement was replaced with 50 % volume of cement with Class F Fly Ash, and again the remaining cement content was replaced by four different percentage of Metakaolin content 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%. Tests were performed on fresh and hardened concrete to determine its workability and mechanical strength properties. A concrete mix of grade M30 was investigated keeping water binder ratio as 0.44 with a total cementatious material content of 399 kg/m3 of concrete. Two different curing conditions investigated are boiling and normal curing condition. Test results indicated that the use of High volumes of Class F Fly Ash and Metakaolin as a partial replacement of cement in concrete decreased its compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s ratio of the concrete. However, the strength properties like impact resistance, abrasion resistance of concrete was increased which may be due to the pozzolanic reaction of Fly Ash. Index Terms — metakaolin, boiling curing, high volume fly ash concrete, ternary blend I