GEO-POLYMER

CONCRETE
VIKASH.E -
311616103056

BHARATH.R -
311616103301

RAHUL ANAND.G -
311616103038

PAVITHRAN.N -
311616103034
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With warm hearts and immense pleasure, we would like to praise and thank the ALMIGHTY for showering
his blessings for the successful completion of this project and deeply express our thanks and respect to our
beloved parents for their invaluable love, moral support and constant encouragement in every walk of our
life.

It was our great pleasure that we record our deep sense of gratitude to our Principal
Dr. C.C.CHIRSTOPHER M.E., Ph.D. MNM JAIN ENGINEERING COLLEGE for her support in
encouraging us all throughout this project.

We heartily thank our professor and Head of the Department

Dr. N.K.RAJAN M.E., Ph.D. for his enthusiastic inspiration, unstinted guidance, cooperative
encouragement and scholarly advice throughout the course of this project.

We would also like to thank FACULTY MEMBERS of Civil Engineering Department for giving their
teaching in our project work.

We also thank our non-teaching faculty members and our friends who gave their direct and indirect consistent
support at every moment for the completion of this project.
 ABSTRACT
• Concrete usage around the world is second only to water. Ordinary Portland
Cement (OPC) is conventionally used as the primary binder to produce
concrete.

• But the amount of carbon dioxide released during the manufacture of OPC
due to the calcinations of lime stone and combustion of fossil fuel is in the
order of 600 kg for every ton of OPC produced.

• On the other hand, the abundant availability of fly ash worldwide creates
opportunity to utilize (by product of burning coal, regarded as a waste
material) as substitute for OPC to manufacture concrete.

• Binders could be produced by polymeric reaction of alkali liquids with the

silicon and the aluminium in the source materials such as fly ash and rice
husk ash and these binders are termed as Geopolymer.
• United Nation’s Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
prepared a report on global warming during April 2007 which enlists
various methods of reduction of CO2 emissions into atmosphere.

• As per that report, unmindful pumping of CO2 into the atmosphere is the
main reason for the climate change.

• Large volume of fly ash is being produced by thermal power stations and
part of the fly ash produced is used in concrete industry, low laying area fill,
roads and embankment, brick manufacturing etc.

• Hence it is imperative on the part of Scientists and Engineers to devise

suitable methodologies for the disposal of fly ash.

• Use of fly ash as a value added material as in the case of geopolymer

concrete, reduces the consumption of cement. Reduction of cement usage
will reduce the production of cement which in turn cut the CO2 emissions.
 INTRODUCTION
• Geopolymer concrete combines an alkaline liquid with a geological source
material containing silicon and aluminium to form a binder that does not use
any Portland cement. Because the chemical reaction that takes place is a
polymerization process, the material is called a geopolymer.

• The geological source material can come from naturally occurring materials
such as kaolites and clays or by-product materials such as fly ash, silica fume,
slag, rice-husk ash, etc. Fly ash, being one of the most abundant source
materials with the necessary properties, is the most commonly used source
material for geopolymer concrete.

• The mechanical properties of geopolymer concrete is similar to that of

Portland cement concrete, and therefore can be used as a substitute for
Portland cement.

• Geopolymer concrete gains strength similar to Portland cement concrete, is

resistant to sulphate attack, has good acid resistance, and undergoes very little
creep and drying shrinkage. It is ideal where durable concrete is a must.
• Structural tests on reinforced concrete elements such as beams and
columns demonstrate similar behaviour to ordinary Portland cement
concrete.

• Obviously, if the process could be made more economical, it would

provide an excellent opportunity to lower the environmental footprint of
concrete construction.

• Geopolymer is an inorganic alumino-silicate polymer synthesized from

predominantly silicon (Si) and aluminium (Al) materials of geological
origin or by-product materials such as fly ash.

• The process involves a chemical reaction under highly alkaline

conditions on Si-Al minerals, yielding polymeric Si-O-Al-O bonds in
amorphous form.

• The geopolymer paste binds the loose coarse aggregates, fine

aggregates and other un-reacted materials together to form the
geopolymer concrete. The manufacture of geopolymer concrete is
carried out using the usual concrete technology methods.
• The silicon and the aluminium in the fly ash are activated by a combination
of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate solutions to form the geopolymer
paste that binds the aggregates and other un-reacted materials.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

• Davidovits (1978) established that the polymerisation process involved a fast chemical
reaction under alkaline condition on silicon, aluminium minerals that resulted in a
three-dimensional polymeric chain and ring structure.

• Saravanan. G et al., (2013) conducted strength and durability studies on Fly ash based
geopolymer bricks. In this studies, the compressive strength of geopolymer bricks made
using 10M and 12M NaOH solution is very high comparable to that of concrete. He
concluded that geopolymer bricks with 5M NaOH solution give compressive strength
comparable to that of country bricks and Fly ash bricks used for normal construction.
Steam curing increases strength of brick which is more when compared to air curing. It
was found that the percentage weight loss of geopolymer bricks when immersed in
different concentration of H2SO4 and HCl is very much lower when compared to other
types of bricks. Further percentage weight loss increases with increasing acid
concentration.
• Vijayasankar .P.M et al., (2013) studied the durability of geopolymer
concrete solid blocks. The compressive strength of ambient-cured fly ash
based geopolymer quarry dust blocks concrete of different sand mixes in
which the Quarry Dust achieves the good compression test result of
3.83N/mm2. In water absorption study the percentage of water absorption is
less in Quarry Dust solid blocks when compared to cement solid blocks and
the percentage of water absorption in eco-sand is very less while comparing
the above two blocks. This is due to the fineness of sand. In sulphate attack,
the average percentage reduction by weight of Quarry Dust solid blocks at
56th day is less when compared to other solid blocks.

• Ashish kumar parashar et al., (2012) investigated the comparative study of

compressive strength of bricks made with various material to clay bricks. He
suggested to use waste materials like fly ash, wood ash, rice husk ash as a
replacement of clay in brick. He said that the clay bricks gave the compressive
strength of 5.26N/mm2, but when 4% of wood ash added by weight in the
clay, then it gave the compressive strength of 5.78N/mm2, again while
increasing the percentage of wood ash as 8%, 12%, 16% by weight the
compressive strength of wood ash brick also increases respectively 6.31, 7.36,
10N/mm2. While different percentage of rice husk 4%, 8%, 12%, 16% was
added by weight in the clay, the compressive strength of bricks decreased.
• Nutan C. Patel et al., (2013) experimented the performance of fly ash brick
casted with glass fibre for getting higher strength brick. He concluded that when
the percentage of glass fibre increases in brick the compressive strength of the
brick is increased and water absorption of the brick is decreased. In his
experimental work, 1% of fibre addition in the brick gives the maximum strength
5.86N/mm2 after 21 days and minimum water absorption of 12.32% after 21 days.
He estimated the cost of brick as 11.4 rupees per brick.

• Siva. A et al., (2017) investigated about the partial replacement of fine aggregate
using crushed spent fire bricks. He concluded that when a crushed spent fire brick
is used as a replacement of natural fine aggregate, there is an increase in strength.
The workability of concrete decreases with replacement of fine aggregate by
crushed spent fine aggregate. The optimum percentage for fine aggregate replaced
with crushed fire bricks achieved at 20 percentage.

• Khater H.M (2016) in his paper he demonstrate various ways in producing

geopolymer bricks with low production cost through various sand ratios as well as
decreasing the concentration of the added alkalis by utilizing cement kiln dust as a
source of high free alkalis that can initiate and propagate geo-polymerisation
reaction. He concluded that the uses of cement dust up to 25% in spite of
decreasing the compressive strength as compared with blank, but it posses higher
value reaching to about 31.6 and 38.7 MPa after 7 and 90 days respectively.
 METHODOLOGY

Material collection

Testing of materials

Trial mix and casting of specimen

Testing of specimen

Results and discussion