The properties and flexural behaviour of self compacting concrete using rice husk ash and admixture

Abstract

Technology in concrete has been developing in many ways to enhance the quality and properties of concrete. One of the technological advances in improving the quality of concrete is by using self compacting concrete (SCC). This research was carried out to establish the properties and flexural behaviour of SCC using rice husk ash (RHA) and admixture with mix design of constant water-cement ratio. The main objective of this study is to find the suitable concrete composition which can be categorized as SCC that using RHA as cement replacement material together with admixture. There are nine composition of mixes were prepared and laboratory test was carried out to investigate the properties of fresh SCC and the strength development of hardened SCC. A total of 108 concrete cube specimens 100 mm x 100 mm x 100 mm were prepared for compression test at 1, 7, 14 and 28 days. Three 100 mm x 200 mm x 1500 mm reinforced concrete beams were prepared for flexural test. Two beams were casted using the optimum mix of SCC while the other one made of normal concrete (NC) to act as control. The results for cubes tests indicated that sample with 5% RHA and 1% Sika Viscocrete is the optimum composition for SCC. This composition increased the performance of hardened concrete. While for the flexural test, SCC concrete have better performance than NC and result for adding RHA as a cement replacement material does not give any significant differences in flexural strength of SCC.