Flexural Behavior Performance of Reinforced Concrete Slabs Mixed with Nano- and Microsilica

Present technology has been evaluated greatly over the past decades, where new particles are being designed and fabricated to fulfill specific needs. The field of nano- and micromaterials has prospered in many disciplines. It has been recently used in reinforced concrete in the production of high-strength, high-performance concrete. Microsilica (MS) and nanosilica (NS) particles have proven to be highly profitable to the concrete mix. Concrete has become denser with considerable improvement in their mechanical characteristics, particularly compressive strength. This proposed method includes a comparative study of the flexural bending behavior of conventional reinforced concrete (without MS or NS) slabs with other slabs. Each has various mixes of MS and NS particles incorporated into the concrete mix. The material content utilized in the slabs is kept constant by replacing a portion of the cement with an equivalent amount of either NS or MS particles or both. MS particles are altered from 0, 5, and 10% while NS particles are altered from 0, 0.5, and 1.0%. It cracks the widths and has higher final load-bearing capacity