Mechanical and Microstructural Performance of Fly Ash Geopolymer Concrete Incorporating Sugarcane Bagasse Ash

Abstract

Today for the growth of a country, there is demand for sustainability. As there is increase in demand of infrastructure there is also increase in the sustainable development due to increase in the pollution. The construction sector is not only contributing to GDP of a country but also contributing the large amount of pollution. One of the major ingredients of the construction sector is the Cement because it acts as a binder to the concrete but manufacturing of cement contributing to the pollution due to emitting CO2 in tonnes. CO2 emission during manufacturing process contributes to the ozone depletion and also effecting surrounding environment. So to decrease this, there is need to have a material which will help to reduce this and a step towards sustainability can be taken. Geopolymer concrete is the one of solution to eliminate this pollution which uses waste products as the ingredients for manufacturing. These waste products are those which cannot dispose of easily and harm the environment such as agricultural waste, industrial waste, thermal power plant etc. Geopolymer concrete is a concrete which is showing good results for the 100% replacement of cement by fly ash. In this paper, investigation about the behaviour of geopolymer concrete for replacement of fly ash by the bagasse ash for different percentage is evaluated. Alkaline activators are used, NaOH and Na2SiO3 with 2.5 ratio. Compressive strength test had been done on different percentage replacement of fly ash by bagasse ash at different curing temperature and curing time for oven curing for 7 days. As per the research work finding maximum strength at 15% replacement of Fly ash by Bagasse ash at 100℃ for 18hrs gives maximum strength up to 43.42Mpa. Microstructure analysis at the optimum percentage was performed using SEM, EDS and XRD to determine the crystalline phases and matrix morphology of the concrete.