STRENGTH OF RC BEAM USING GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE AND ADOPTING BUBBLE TECHNOLOGY

CIVIL ENGINEERING

The continuous reduction in raw resources in the construction industry has reached the alarming stage such that the usage of waste by-products from various industries has become the necessity. Fly ash has been used in construction industry from the last decade but there is a need for more experimental studies with other material as a substitution. Polyethylene terephthalate, known as PET has been widely used for developing plastic bottles. Although it has umpteenth uses, it has serious issues of biodegradability. Hence, researchers are also trying to investigate the properties of PET fibers as construction material. This experimental work has been done to examine the fully replacement of cement in concrete with fly ash, bagasse ash and metakaolin. Total 4 mixes were prepared for this study and strength parameters were explored. Cement was replaced fully with 70% fly ash, 20% metakaolin and 10% bagasse ash. PET fibers were also added with the varying proportion of 2%, 3% and 4%. The obtained concrete mixes were tested for its compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength at 7 days and 28 days. It can be concluded from the present investigation that the Geopolymer containing 3% PET fibers is more effective in strength than the other mixes. This method is used in the concrete floor system. Concrete is good in compression and hence is more useful in the compression region than in the tension region. The reduction in concrete can be done by replacing the tension zone concrete. Keeping the same idea in mind, an attempt has been made to find out the effectiveness of plastic bubbles by replacing concrete in the tension zone of Ordinary Portland Cement Concrete (OPCC) and Geopolymer Concrete (GPC) beam. Geopolymer Concrete does not form calcium- silicate-hydrates (CSHs) for matrix formation and strength like OPCC but utilizes the polycondensation of silica and alumina precursors to attain structural strength. In this project, M25 concrete mix is used to prepare both OPCC and GPC beams. The trial mix is tested for compressive strength. Flexure test is done is done for 28 days of curing of the beams.

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