A STUDY ON THE STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF LIGHTWEIGHT GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE
Keywords:
Geopolymer concrete, expanded clay aggregates (ECA), Recycled plastic waste aggregates (RPA), Fly ash bricks, and alkaline activators.Abstract
The present research work deals with the preliminary investigations on the development of the lightweight Geopolymer concrete (LWGPC). The objective of the study is to develop the LWGPC for the applications in reducing the thermal conductivity and reduction of the structural dead load. The scope of the study includes mix design, tests on constituents, preparation of alkaline solution and tests on the mixes for obtaining the strength properties of LWGPC. The study includes innovative usage of expanded clay aggregates, recycled plastic aggregates, recycled fly ash bricks aggregates toward the achievement of the weight reduction of the conventional GPC. The study is focused on obtaining the compressive and splitting tensile strength of the GPC specimens containing the lightweight aggregates of varying types. The results revealed that the usage of the expanded clay aggregates reduced the weight of the GPC up to 50% at the full replacement of the natural aggregates. Though the strength properties did not show a noticeable improvement, the material may be utilized for the light to medium intensity of the loads for various field applications.
