In the twenty-first century, most high-performance concretes, and many other ordinary concretes, are now based on blended cements that contain silica fume, slag, and/or fly ash additions. Because the chemical shrinkage accompanying the pozzolanic and hydraulic reactions of these mineral admixtures is generally much greater than that accompanying conventional portland cement hydration, these ble...

0958-9465/$ see front matter Published by Elsevier doi:10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2011.04.008 ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.P. Bentz), (A.S. Hansen). In the drive to produce more sustainable concretes, considerable emphasis has been placed on replacing cement in concrete mixtures with more sustainable materials, both from a raw materials cost and a CO2 footprint per...

The research focuses on the use of recycled aggregate (RA), from waste pieces generated during production in precast plants for self-compacting concrete (SCC) manufactured with a double sustainable goal: recycle manufacturing waste (consumption) and improvement of the thermal properties of the manufactured product (energy efficiency). For this purpose, a mechanical study to ensure technical fea...

For more than a century, several inclusions have been mixed with Portland cement-nowadays the most-consumed construction material worldwide-to improve both the strength and durability required for construction. The present paper describes the different families of inclusions that can be combined with cement matrix and reviews the achievements reported to date regarding mechanical performance, a...

This paper presents the effect of Hydrochloric acid (HCl) on Blended Cement (Fly ash based(BC)) and Silica Fume Blended Cement(SFBC) and their concretes. The BC and SFBC and their concretes BCC and SFBCC produced with HCl dosage of 100, 150, 300, 500 and 900 mg/l added in deionised water. In addition to this control specimens were prepared with deionised water (without HCl) for comparison. The ...

Many concrete structures are required to have sufficient abrasion resistance, such as dams, canals, roads and floors. The abrasion resistance of concrete may be defined as its ability to resist being worn away by rubbing. Compressive strength and aggregate type are also important factors affecting the abrasive behaviour of concrete. However, very little information on the properties of haematit...

The interfacial transition zone (ITZ) is known to strongly influence the mechanical and transport properties of mortars and concretes. This paper studies the ITZ between siliceous (quartz) aggregates and alkali-activated slag (AAS) binders in the context of mortar specimens. Backscattered electron (BSE) images generated in an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) are used to identif...

At present, one of the most suitable ways to get a more sustainable cement industry is to reduce the CO₂ emissions generated during cement production. In order to reach that goal, the use of ground granulated blast-furnace slag as clinker replacement is becoming increasingly popular. Although the effects of this addition in the properties of cementitious materials are influenced by their harden...

The available literature identifies that the addition of mineral admixture as partial replacement of cement improves the microstructure of the concrete (i.e., porosity and pore size distribution) as well as increasing the mechanical characteristics such as drying shrinkage and creep, compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, and modulus of elasticity; however, no single documen...