Development of Solid and Hollow Geopolymer Masonry Blocks

Cement masonry units are not considered assustainable due to consumption of fuel, cement and naturalresources. It is essential to find alternatives. This paper reportsabout making of Geopolymers solid and hollow blocks andmasonry prisms and wallets using non conventional materialslike fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag andmanufacture sand which were cured in ambient temperature.They were tested for water absorption, initial rate of waterabsorption, dry density, dimensionality, compressive, flexural,and bond-strength. Also they were tested with and without lateralconfinement, modulus of elasticity, alternative drying andwetting test and to masonry efficiency. It was found that theproperties of geopolymer blocks were superior to the traditionalmasonry blocks. Masonry efficiency increases with decrease inthickness of the cement mortar joints. There was marginaldifference in strength between rendered and unrenderedgeopolymer masonry blocks. The percentage of weight gain after7 cycles was less than 6%. The percentage of reduction instrength of geopolymer solid block and hollow blocks were 26%and 28 respectively. It is observed that the average compressivestrength of the axially loaded and eccentrically loaded wallets forthe solid blocks was 2.07 and 1.87 MPa and hollow blocks was2.31 and 1.95 MPa respectively. These properties arecomparatively better than the traditional masonry Hencegeopolymer blocks can be recommended for structural masonry