International Journal on Mechanical Engineering and Robotics (IJMER)

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Strength and Durability characteristics of Geopolymer concrete using

GGBS and RHA
S.Subburaj, S.Ravikumar, V.ajith
VV College of Engineering, Tisayanvilai, Tutucorin
Abstract Cement, the second most consumed product in
the world, contributes nearly 7% of the global carbon
dioxide emission. Several efforts are in progress to reduce
the use of Portland cement in concrete in order to address
the global warming issues. Geopolymer concrete is a
cementless concrete. It has the potential to reduce globally
the carbon emission that lead to a sustainable development
and growth of the concrete industry. In this study, geopolymer concrete is prepared by incorporating ground
granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and black rice husk
ash (BRHA) as source materials. In India RHA is used for
cattle feeding, partition board manufacturing, land filling,
etc. RHA is either white or black in colour. If the rice husk
is burnt in controlled temperature and duration, it will
result the ash in white colour. This type of RHA has high
percentage of silica content. The ease availability of RHA is
black in colour due to uncontrolled burning temperature
and duration in various rice mills, so the resulting rice
husk ash is called as black rice husk ash (BRHA).
In this study GGBS used as a base material for geopolymer
concrete and it is replaced upto 30% by BRHA. The
strength characteristic of GGBS and BRHA based
geopolymer concrete has been studied. The suitable
compressive strength test is performed. The result shows
that the replacement of BRHA decreases the compressive
strength of geopolymer concrete, because of the unburnt
carbon content present in the BRHA.
Keywords Geopolymer concrete, GGBS, Black Rice
Husk Ash, Compressive strength

I. INTRODUCTION
Concrete is the second most used material in the world
after water. Ordinary Portland cement has been used
traditionally as a binding material for preparation of
concrete. One tone of carbon dioxide is estimated to be
released to the atmosphere when one ton of ordinary
Portland cement is manufactured. Also the emission by
cement manufacturing process contributes 7% to the
global carbon dioxide emission. It is important to find an
alternate binder which has less CO2 emission than
cement. Geopolymer is an excellent alternative which
transform industrial waste products like flyash, GGBS
and rice husk ash into binder for concrete. Al- Si
materials which are used as source materials undergoes
dissolutions, gel formation, setting and hardening stages
to form geopolymers. There are two main constituents of

geo-polymers, namely the source materials and the

alkaline liquids. The source materials for geo-polymers
based on alumina-silicate should be rich in silicon (Si)
and aluminium (Al). These could be natural minerals
such as kaolinite, clays, etc. Alternatively, by-product
materials such as fly ash, silica fume, slag, rice-husk
ash, red mud, etc could be used as source materials. The
choice of the source materials for making geo-polymers
depends on factors such as availability, cost, type of
application, and specific demand of the end users. The
alkaline liquids are from soluble alkali metals that are
usually sodium or potassium based. The most common
alkaline liquids used in geo-polymerization are a
combination of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or potassium
hydroxide (KOH) and sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) or
potassium silicate (K2SiO3).
The alumino silicate material which is to be used in this
study is a combination of Rice husk ash and ground
granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS). RHA is either
white or black in color. If the rice husk is burnt in
controlled temperature and duration, it will result the ash
in white color. This type of RHA has high percentage of
silica content. The ease availability of RHA is black in
color due to uncontrolled burning temperature and
duration in various rice mills, so the black color rice
husk ash is called as black rice husk ash (BRHA). The
RHA used in this study was black rice husk ash. This
study aims to synthesize geopolymer concrete using
combination of GGBS and BRHA. In this study GGBS
used as a base material for geoploymer concrete. GGBS
is replaced up to 30% by BRHA to understand the
strength and durability characteristics.

II. MATERIALS
The materials used for making GGBS based geopolymer
concrete specimens are GGBS, Rice Husk Ash,
aggregates, alkaline liquids, water and super plasticizer.
Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag was procured
from JSW cements in Bellari, Karnataka. Black Rice
Husk Ash was obtained from a Rice mill near Karaikudi
and then it was finely grounded. The properties of
GGBS and BRHA are given in Table I.

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ISSN (Print) : 2321-5747, Volume-2, Issue-4,2014
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International Journal on Mechanical Engineering and Robotics (IJMER)

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TABLE I. PROPERTIES OF GGBS AND RHA
Property
SiO2
Al2O3
Fe2O3
CaO
MgO
Specific gravity

GGBS
31.25 %
14.06 %
2.80 %
33.75 %
7.03 %
2.61

BRHA
93.96 %
0.56 %
0.43 %
0.55 %
0.4 %
2.11

Aggregates
Coarse aggregate passing through 20mm sieve and fine
aggregate of river sand from a local supplier were used
for the present study and their properties are given in
Table II.
TABLE II. PROPERTIES OF AGGREGATES
Property
Specific gravity
Fineness modulus
Bulk density

Coarse
Aggregate
2.73
7.36
1533 kg/m3

Fine
Aggregate
2.60
2.63
1254 kg/m3

dry condition for 3-4 minutes and then the alkaline

solution which is a combination of Sodium hydroxide
and Sodium silicate solution with super-plasticizer was
added to the dry mix. Then some extra water about 15%
by weight of the binder was added to improve the
workability. The mixing was continued for about 6-8
minutes. After the mixing, the concrete was placed in
cube moulds of size 150mm X 150mm X 150mm by
giving proper compaction. The GPC specimens were
then placed in a hot air oven at a temperature of 60 oC for
48 hours and then the specimens were taken out and
cured under room temperature till the time of testing.The
cubes were then tested at 3, 7 and 28 days from the day
of casting.
TABLE III. MIX PROPOTIONS OF GEOPOLYMER
CONCRETE
Materials

Mass(Kg/m3)
Mix1

Mix2

Mix3

Mix4

(10%
RHA)
355

(20%
RHA)
315

(30%
RHA)
276

GGBS

(0%
RHA)
394

B. Alkaline solution

RHA

39

79

118

A mixture of Sodium hydroxide and Sodium Silicate

was used as the alkaline solution in the present study.
Commercial grade Sodium Hydroxide in pellets form
(97%-100% purity) and Sodium silicate solution having
7.5%-8.5% of Na2O and 25% -28% and water of
67.5%- 63.5% were used in the present study. The ratio
of Sodium Silicate to Sodium Hydroxide was kept as
2.5. In this study the compressive strength of geopolymer concrete is examined for the mix of 8M of
NaOH solution. The molecular weight of NaOH is 40.
For example to prepare 8M of NaOH solution 320g of
NaOH flakes are weighed and they can be dissolved in
distilled water to form 1 litre solution. For this,
volumetric flask of 1 litre capacity is taken, NaOH
flakes are added slowly to distilled water to prepare
1litre solution.

Coarse Aggregate

647

647

647

647

Fine Aggregate

1201

1201

1201

1201

Sodium
Hydroxide
Sodium Silicate
Super Plasticizer
Extra Water
(15%)

45

45

45

45

113
8
59

113
8
59

113
8
59

113
8
59

In order to improve the workability of fresh concrete,

high-range water-reducing naphthalene based super
plasticizer was used. Extra water nearly 15% of binder is
added to increase the workability of the concrete.

III. METHODOLOGY
C. Mixing, Casting and Curing
The mix proportions were taken as given in Table. III.
As there are no code provisions for the mix design of
geopolymer concrete, the density of geo-polymer
concrete was assumed as 2400 Kg/m3 and other
calculations were done based on the density of concrete
[4]. The combined total volume occupied by the coarse
and fine aggregates was assumed to be 77%. The
alkaline liquid to binder ratio was taken as 0.40. GGBS
was kept as the primary binder in which BRHA was
replaced in 0, 10, 20 and 30% by weight. The normal
mixing procedure was adopted. First, the fine aggregate,
coarse aggregate and GGBS & BRHA were mixed in

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The cubes were tested in the compressive testing
machine to determine their compressive strength at the
age of 3, 7 and 28 days from the day of casting. The
Table IV and figure 1 shows the compressive strength
variation with percentage replacement of BRHA. The
table4 shows that GGBS based geopolymer concrete
attained compressive strength of 69 MPa. 10 %
replacement of GGBS by RHA gives compressive
strength of 58 MPa.
The figure1 shows that there is an increase in
compressive strength if the curing time increases. The
percentage of increase in strength is approximately 16 to
20 for the curing time of 3days to 28days. The
percentage increase in strength from 3 to 28 days curing
time is approximately 24% for mix1. The graph shows
that the replacement of BRHA in GGBS based
geopolymer concrete decreases the compressive
strength. Because of the unburnt carbon content present
in BRHA, decreases the compressive strength. The
average 28 days compressive strength of mix2 and mix3
is decreases by 20% and 46% compared to mix1.

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ISSN (Print) : 2321-5747, Volume-2, Issue-4,2014
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International Journal on Mechanical Engineering and Robotics (IJMER)

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TABLE IV. COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH TEST
RESULTS
Mix

Mix1 (100% GGBS, 0%

RHA)
Mix 2 (90% GGBS,
10% RHA)
Mix 3 (80% GGBS,
20% RHA)
Mix 4 (70% GGBS,
30% RHA)

Compressiv
e strength
at 3rd day
(MPa)
55.9

Compressiv
e strength
at 7th day
(MPa)
60.5

Compressiv
e strength
at 28th day
(MPa)
69.2

48.6

54.3

57.46

40.75

44.72

47.36

20.8

23.54

27.36

guidance and constant motivation. The author would

also like to thank the faculty members of Division of
Structural Engineering, vv college of Engineering
University, tisayanviai for their consent encouragement
and support during the project work. The author would
also like to thank his family and friends for their
complete moral support.

REFERENCES

Fig.1 Variation of compressive strength at 3rd, 7th and

28th days with replacement of BRHA

[1]

Alireza Naji Givi, Suraya Abdul Rashid, Farah

Nora A. Aziz, Mohamad Amran Mohd Salleh,
(2010), Assessment of the effects of rice husk
ash particle size on strength, water permeability
and workability of binary blended concrete,
Construction and Building Materials., Vol. 24,
Issue 11, pp.2145-2150.

[2]

Bhosale, M.A, Shinde, N.N (2012), Geopolymer

concrete by using fly ash in
construction, IOSR Journal of Mechanical and
Civil Engineering., Vol. 1, Issue 3, pp.25-30.

[3]

Detphan.S,
and
P.
Chindaprasirt,
(2009), Preparation of fly ash and rice husk
ash geo-polymer International Journal of
Minerals, Metallurgy and Materials., Vol. 16,
Issue 6, pp. 720-726.

[4]

Hardjito, D. and Rangan, B. V. (2005),

Development and Properties of Low Calcium
Fly Ash Based Geo-polymer Concrete,
Research Report GC 1, Faculty of Engineering,
Curtin University of Technology.

[5]

Joseph Davidovits, (1994), Global Warming

Impact on the Cement and Aggregates
Industries, World Resource Review, Vol. 8,
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[6]

Kartini, K, Mahmud, H.B, Hamidah, M.S,

(2006), Strength Properties of Grade 30 Rice
Husk Ash Concrete 31st Conference on Our
World in Concrete & Structures.

V. CONCLUSIONS
From the limited experimental study conducted on the
geopolymer concrete made with GGBS and BRHA, the
following conclusions are made.
1.

The GGBS based geopolymer concrte gives higher

strength.

2.

The replacement of GGBS by BRHA decreases the

compressive strength because of the unburnt
carbon content.

3.

The percentage replacement of BRHA in GGBS

based geo-polymer concrete is significant only in
10%.

[7]

Due to the presence of high silica content in BRHA

(94%) there is a fast chemical reaction occurred
resulting quick setting of geo-polymer concrete.

Malhotra, V. M. (1999), Making Concrete

"Greener" With Fly Ash American Concrete
Institute. pp. 61-66.

[8]

McCaffery, R. (2002), Climate Change and the

Cement Industry, Global Cement and Lime
Magazine (Environment Special Issue),
pp. 15-19.

[9]

Mehta, P. K., (2001) Reducing the

Environmental Impact of Concrete, ACI
Concrete International, Vol. 23, (10) pp. 61-66.

4.

5.

In this study, the Si / Al ratio is not maintained due

to low alumina content in the source materials
resulting in lesser compressive strength .

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to acknowledge his Research
supervisor mr. p. muthuraman for his meticulous

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ISSN (Print) : 2321-5747, Volume-2, Issue-4,2014
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