Research Article Experimental Study on Durability Improvement of Fly Ash Concrete with Durability Improving Admixture

Copyright © 2014 H.-z. Quan and H. Kasami. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In order to improve the durability of fly ash concrete, a series of experimental studies are carried out, where durability improving admixture is used to reduce drying shrinkage and improve freezing-thawing resistance. The effects of durability improving admixture, air content, water-binder ratio, and fly ash replacement ratio on the performance of fly ash concrete are discussed in this paper.The results show that by using durability improving admixture in nonair-entraining fly ash concrete, the compressive strength of fly ash concrete can be improved by 10%–20%, and the drying shrinkage is reduced by 60%. Carbonation resistance of concrete is roughly proportional to water-cement ratio regardless of water-binder ratio and fly ash replacement ratio. For the specimens cured in air for 2 weeks, the freezing-thawing resistance is improved. In addition, by making use of durability improving admixture, it is easier to control the air content andmake fly ash concrete into nonair-entraining one.The quality of fly ash concrete is thereby optimized. 1