BEHAVIOUR OF GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE FILLED PVC TUBES

Abstract

Concrete is till now the one of the most popular material for construction on earth. Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) is most widely used with other materials like water and aggregates to act as binder. Due to the increased demand for concrete as construction material, the demand for Portland cement also increases. Geopolymer concrete (GPC), which is recognised as an environmentally friendly alternative to ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete, has been reported to possess high fire resistance. There has been quite a number of researchers who have worked on geopolymer concrete and good amount of literature is available on it. At the same time, deterioration of concrete and its restoration has been a subject of recent concern and people are coming up with methods to improve the strength and durability of a structure. Two evident deficiencies are lack of lateral confinement and low energy absorption capacity. Taking these points in account PVC pipes have been used as lateral confinement since also because there is very little work done in this direction. Very limited research has been conducted to investigate the behaviour of geopolymer concrete-filled PVC tubular (GCFT) columns at either ambient or elevated temperatures. The present work is an attempt to fill the knowledge gap present in the field. The review of literature shows that in most of the earlier studies on GPC source material was only fly ash which requires an elevated temperature for curing. But when coupled with ground granulated blast furnace (GGBS) slag, this could also be used without requiring the temperature to be raised. i.e. normal temperature curing. Concrete filled PVC tubes have some literature but there has not been much work done in the with geopolymer concrete filled PVC tubes. In view of this, present experiment is designed to find out the strength of geopolymer concrete filled PVC tubes with variation in the GGBS content and the molarity of the alkaline solution used to activate the binder. The main purpose of this project was to study the load- displacement and ductility behaviour of fly ash based geopolymer concrete blended with GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag). There are a total of 2 different mix designs for both 8M and 14M solution having 80% and 100% replacement with Ground Granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS). Two different sizes of tubes were used for the experiment