A Study on Self Compacting Concrete using Portland Pozzolana Cement

Abstract

Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a type of highly flowable concrete that fills each and every corner of congested formwork without the need for mechanical vibration as it is placed by means of its own weight. Generally, the SCC is prepared by using Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) with mineral and chemical admixtures. Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC) itself contains some amount of fly ash, thus given the motivation to prepare the SCC using PPC only. However, in this study, SCC and the normal concrete (NC) with and without chemical admixture were prepared for M20, M25 & M30 grades. Mix design for all the concretes was prepared according to IS: 10262. Various tests were performed at the laboratory to obtain the properties of materials used in the preparation of mix design. Properties of fresh (like slump flow, workability) and hardened (like compressive strength) concretes were recorded during testing at the laboratory. It was checked whether the use of PPC in producing the SCC is beneficial or not for the different grades of concretes. Finally, the recommendations are made on the SCC and the NC with and without admixture based on the present results of compressive strength, quantity & cost of materials used. For lower grades of concrete, the SCC had a marginally higher strength than the NC for a nearly similar water-cement or cement-binder ratio. But, for higher grades, the preparation of SCC by using only PPC without getting segregated and bleeding properties is a difficult task and in that case the NC with admixture was found more effective.

Keywords: Self-compacting concrete, PPC, slump flow, workability, compressive strength