Influence of Rice Husk Ash on Mechanical Properties and Stress-Strain Behaviour of Standard Grade Self Compacting Concrete

Self compacting concrete is a recently developed concept in which the ingredients of the concrete mix are proportioned in such a way that it can flow under its own weight to completely fill the formwork and passes through the congested reinforcement without segregation and self consolidate without any mechanical vibration. The basis of SCC is high content of ultra fines which consists of one or more varieties of mineral admixtures and chemical admixtures. An attempt has been made in the investigation reported in this paper to study the influence of rice husk ash on the fresh, hardened properties and stress-strain behaviour of standard grade (M 30) SCC. Three SCC mixes with optimized quantities of mineral admixtures like fly ash(FA), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and combination were designed based on Nan-Su method of mix design and are taken for investigation. To these optimized mixes rice husk ash (RHA) was added in different proportions and tested in fresh and hardened states. Incorporation of small quantity of RHA has shown considerable reduction in flowability of SCC. Significant improvement in the compressive, tensile and flexural strengths is observed due to the addition of RHA to SCC mixes. It is observed from the Stress-Strain response that blending of RHA to SCC mixes have shown improved stress values for the same strain level