Study effect of polyester fibres on engineering and durability properties of high volume fly ash concrete

Abstract

Need and Growth of infrastructural facilities has been tremendously increased during last two decades across the world and hence the construction industry. In construction industry concrete of various kinds is the key material because of its potential benefits, low inherent energy and recycle values. On the earth concrete is the most consumed material after water; which needs to give due consideration towards the sustainability of concrete industries in particular. The sustainability issue for concrete construction industry is not arrived due to one or more reasons related to the material or the technology itself. This includes it consumes large quantities of virgin materials; the principal binder in concrete is cement, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions that are implicated in global warming and climate change. Cement on other hand also utilizes natural resource in form of lime stone. Huge amount of energy is consumed in mining, blasting, crushing and transportation of these raw materials. Concrete structures suffer from durability issues which have an adverse effect on the resource productivity of the industry. Potential and optimize utilization of cementing material in concrete will definitely lead towards sustainable concrete construction. Use of industry waste and by products like fly ash, silica fume, grounded granular slag to partly replace cementing material to concrete system addresses all three sustainability issues, its adoption will enable the concrete construction industry to become more sustainable. High Volume Fly Ash (HVFA) concrete is one of the solutions in this context of sustainable concrete construction. Though HVFA concrete technology has been developed way back and being proven technology for construction industries with potential benefits over regular concrete, it has been not become popular in developing countries due to one or other limitations like ductility, impact and abrasion resistance. Authors in this article will describe effect of polyester fibres on engineering properties Impact Strength and Abrasion Resistance of High Volume Fly Ash Concrete design mix M25, M30, M35 and M40. Test samples include replacement of cement by 50%, 55% and 60% class F fly ash. Paper contains test results of key material like fly ash, fibre, mix design for all grade, 60 min. slump comparison, comparative study of impact and abrasion resistance for plain and fibre reinforced HVFA at 28 and 56 days age. Comparative studies of economic gain with HVFA over conventional mix will also be presented to address sustainability issue.