International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development

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ISSN 2249-6149

STRENGTH AND DURABILITY CHARACTERISTICS

OF GGBFS BASED SCC
Sabeer Alavi.C#1, I.Baskar#2, Dr.R.Venkatasubramani #3
#1 Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Sri Krishna College of
Technology, Kovaipudur, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

#2 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Sri Krishna College of

Technology, Kovaipudur, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

#1 Professor and Head of Civil Engineering, Sri Krishna College of Technology,

Kovaipudur, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.

ABSTRACT
Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a highly flowable concrete which is able to fill the
formwork and the areas of congested reinforcement completely under its own weight and
without the need for vibration. Here Portland cement (PC) is replaced with 10%, 20%, 30%,
40% and 50% of GGBFS. The w/p ratio is kept constant throughout the investigation as 0.45.
Super plasticizer known as Glenium B233 is used. Since there is no standard method of mix
design is available for SCC. Hence the mix proportion is obtained as per the guidelines given
by European Federation of producers and contractors of special products for structure
(EFNARC).Marsh cone test was used to find the saturation point of different type of cements
by adding the dosage of super plasticizer accordingly. This paper presents an experimental
investigation on strength aspects like compressive, flexural and split tensile strengthand the
workability tests (slump, L-box, U-box and T50). The result of fresh property test satisfies the
limits specified by EFNARC. It is observed that when the cement is replaced with mineral
admixture, the amount of Super plasticizer to be used can be reduced thereby maintaining the
required flowability.Also, the resilience study for SCC after 28 days curing was done by
conducting some of the tests such as saturated water absorption, porosity, carbonation depth
and alkalinity measurement.

Key words: SCC, Ground Granulated Blast Furnace slag, Super plasticizer, fresh property,
compressive, flexural and split tensile strength.
Corresponding Author: SabeerAlavi.C
INTRODUCTION
Concrete is the most extensively used material in civil engineering construction so
that considerable attention is taken for improving the properties of concrete with respect to

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Issue 3, Vol.2 (March 2013)

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strength and durability. Numerous types of concrete have been developed to enhance the
different properties of concrete. So far, this development can be divided into four stages. The
earliest is the traditional normal strength concrete which is composed of only four constituent
materials, which are cement, water, fine and coarse aggregates. With a fast population growth
and a higher demand for housing and infrastructure, accompanied by recent developments in
Civil Engineering, such as high-rise buildings and long-span bridges, higher compressive
strength concrete was needed. Thus, here comes a concrete that meeting special combinations
of performance and uniformity requirements that cannot be always achieved routinely by
using conventional constituents and normal mixing called High Performance Concrete
(HPC).HPC is of five types namely High-Early Strength Concrete, High-Strength Concrete,
High-Durability Concrete, Self-Compacting Concrete and Reactive Powder Concrete.
Inspiteof different types of concrete available like High Strength Concrete, High Performance
Concrete, Air Entrained Concrete, Light Weight Concrete, Shotcrete, Pervious Concrete
etc, Self compacting Concrete has its own advantages and applications in the field of Civil
Engineering.
Self-compacting concrete (SCC) first developed in Japan, represents one of the most
significant advances in concrete technology for decades. It can flow and compact in the
formwork under its own self weight without the need for vibration. Use of Self-compacting
concrete offers substantial benefits in enhancing construction productivity, reducing overall
cost, improving working environment and in sustainability. The first generation of SCC used
in the UK and Europe, such as the one developed in a large European research project, which
investigated the practicability of using self-compacting concrete in both civil engineering and
in building structures, contained a high dosage of powder, as well as a high dosage of super
plasticizer (SP), to ensure adequate filling ability and passing abilities and segregation
resistance. Savings in labor costs might offset the increased cost related to the use of more
cement and SP, but the use of mineral admixtures, such as could increase the fluidity of the
concrete, without any increase in the cost. The incorporation of FA, or GGBFS or SF reduced
the requirement of SP necessary to obtain a similar slump flow compared with the same
concrete containing only cement. These supplementary materials also enhanced the
rheological parameters and reduced the risk of the cracking of concrete due to the heat of
hydration, and therefore improved the durability.
The important aspect in achieving SCC is cement- Superplasticizercompactability.
Polycarboxylate are the most effective of all the chemicals used in concrete. The admixture
can cause a reduction in water content of as much as 40%. Generally this chemical exhibit
good slump retention characteristic and do not cause any delay in the gain of strength of
concrete. PCE can work at lower dosage than SNF and Lignosulphonate.In this study, it is
aimed to investigate the effect of GGBFS as mineral admixtures on the fresh and hardened
properties of SCC. Fresh concrete tests such as slump-flow, L-box, T500, U-box.Also, the
resilience study for SCC after 28 days curing was done by conducting some of the tests such
as saturated water absorption, porosity, carbonation depth and alkalinity measurement.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Ordinary Portland cement of grade 43 conforming to IS: 12269-1987 was used.
Locally available river sand conforming to grading zone II of IS: 383-1970 was used and
crushed stones of nominal size 12.5mm conforming to IS 383-1970 was used. The Specific
gravity of coarse aggregate was 2.77.The specific gravity of cement and sand was 3.15 and
2.65 respectively. Besides this the byproduct ground granulated blast-furnace slag from
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Issue 3, Vol.2 (March 2013)

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Agnisteel plant, Erodeconforming toASTM C 1240 as mineral admixture in dry dandified

form.A new generation based Polycarboxylic ether (PCE) was usedas chemical admixture to
enhance the workability of the concrete which is known as GLENIUM B-233,obtained from
BASF-The Chemical Company, PeelameduPudur, Coimbatore.GLENIUM STREAM 2 is a
premier ready-to-use, liquid, organic, viscosity-modifying admixture (VMA) specially
developed for producing concrete with enhanced viscosity and controlled rheological
properties, Obtained from BASF-The Chemical Company, PeelameduPudur
Coimbatore.The characteristic properties and mineralogical composition of these three
mineral admixtures and the cement are given in Table1.
Table1. Properties of Portland cement and mineral admixture.
Component (%)

Slag cement

Cement

Loss of ignition(LOI)

1.2

2.0

SiO2

10-19

20

Magnesium oxide(MgO)

11

2.5

Al2O3

1-3

4.85

Fe2O3

22-30

0.6

Calcium Oxide(CaO)

40-52

62.56

Chemical composition (%)

MIX PROPORTIONS
One control and five SCC mixes with different replacements of mineral admixture
were prepared and examined to quantify the properties of SCC. Table 2 presents the
composition of SCC mixtures. The replacement was done at levels of 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%
and 50% of cement content. After iterative trial mixes the water/powder mass ratio (w/p) was
selected as 0.45. The total powder content was varied as 400kg/m3, 450 kg/m3, 500 kg/m3 as
iterative values and finally is fixed as 500 kg/m3. Polycarboxylate based high range water
reducing admixture (HRWRA) was used along with these mixes. No single method has been
found which characterizes all the relevant workability aspects so each mix design should be
tested by more than one test method in order to obtain different workability parameters.
Water/powder ratio is usually accepted between 0.9 and 1.0 in volume, depending on the
properties of the powder.

Table2. PROCEDURE ADOPTED TO ARRIVE AT MIXPROPORTION(Water/Powder ratio = 0.45)

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TRIAL

CEMENT
Kg/m3

GGBFS
Kg/m3

C.A
Kg/m3

WATER
Kg/m3

SP
ml

VMA
ml

MIX
RATIO

3.25

4.94

4.55

1.46

28.30

2.66

1:1.52:1.4

3.42

4.86

4.10

1.54

29.75

2.80

1:1.42:1.30

3.62

5.14

3.98

1.63

31.49

2.97

1:1.42:1.10

3.50

5.08

4.42

1.58

30.45

2.87

1:1.45:1.26

3.58

5.23

3.94

1.61

31.15

2.95

1:1.46:1.10

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this study, fresh and hardened properties of SCC were investigated by replacing the
cement Ground Granulated Blast Furnace slag.
MARSH CONE TEST
The Marsh cone test is a simple approach to get some data about cement pastes
rheological behavior. It has already been used in cement based materials mix design in order
to define the super-plasticizer saturation point, i.e. the dosage beyond which the flow time
does not decrease appreciably.Below shows the reading (Table3) and graph (Fig 1).

Super plasticizer
dosage
(as a percentage
of cement mass)
0.1

Flow time in
second

0.2

12.94

0.4

12.69

16.32
20

0.8

12.6

0.87

12.7

0.9

12.75

12.72

Table3.Marsh cone test

Flow time(sec)

15
10
(OPC-43)

5
0
0.1 0.2 0.4 0.8 0.87 0.9

Superplasticizer dosage (%)

Fig 1: Marsh cone graph

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FRESH PROPERTIES
Table 4 shows the values of fresh properties of different SCC mixes. In terms of
slump flow, all SCC mixtures exhibited satisfactory slump flows in the range of 690750
mm, which is an indication of a good deformability. When cement is replaced by GGBFS, a
lower dosage of Superplasticizer is required to maintain the same filling ability. Fig 2 shows
the slump value of different SCC mix. T50 times indicates the viscosity of highly flowable
concrete mixes. Lower time indicates greater flowability. The T50 was influenced by the
dosage of water and superplasticizer. V funnel test was performed to assess the flowabilty
and stability of the SCC. Fig 3,4,5,6 shows the test resultsfor T50, V-Funnel, L-Box, and UBox. The increase in coarse aggregate causes the increase in V-Funnel time. L-box ratio
indicates the filling and passing ability of each mixture. L-box test is more sensitive to
blocking. There is a risk of blocking of the mixture when the L-box blocking ratio is below
0.8.The obtained L-box values are tabulated in Table4.
Table4. Fresh Properties of SCC Mixes
MIX

Slump Flow
(mm)

T50 (sec)

V-funnel
(sec)

U-Box
(h2-h1)mm

L-Box
(h2/h1)

M CONTROL

550

12.0

30

0.82

MGGBFS-10%

635

10.8

27

0.87

MGGBFS-20%

650

3.8

9.2

24

0.92

MGGBFS-30%

660

3.5

8.5

22

0.93

MGGBFS-40%

655

3.5

8.3

23

0.93

MGGBFS-50%

640

3.9

8.2

25

0.92

670
660
650
640
630
620
610

SLUMP FLOW TEST

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

GGBFS replacement(%)

Fig 2: Slump Vs Mix proportions

T50 Vs Mix proportions

Time Flow(sec)

Slump Flow in dia (mm)

Slump Vs Mix proportions

6
5
4
3
2
1
0

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

GGBFS replacement(%)

Fig 3: T50Vs Mix proportions

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50%

L-BOX TEST

15
10
5

V-FUNNEL TEST

(H2/H1) mm

0.95

0.9
0.85
L-BOX TEST

0.8
0.75

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%

Time flow(sec)

V-Funnel Vs Mix
proportions

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

GGBFS replacement(%)

GGBFS replacement(%)
Fig 4: V-Funnel Vs Mix proportions

Fig 5 L-Box Height ratio Vs Mix proportions

U-Box Vs Mix proportions

35

H2-H1(mm)

30
25
20
15
U-BOX TEST

10
5
0
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

GGBFS replacement(%)
Fig 6: Mix Vs U-Box Height Ratio (H2-H1)
DURABILITY PROPERTIES
The durability study for SCC after 28 days curing was done by conducting
some of the tests such as saturated water absorption, porosity, carbonation depth and
alkalinity measurement.Tables 5,6,7,8 show the values of durability properties of different
SCC mixes. When cement is replaced by GGBFS, a lower dosage of Superplasticizer is
required to maintain the same filling ability. Fig 7 shows the saturated water absorption test
of different SCC mix. Fig 8,9,10 shows the test resultsforporosity, carbonation depth,
alkalinity measurement on concrete respectively.
Table5.Saturated water absorption test result
Replacement of
cement with GGBFS
(percentage)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%

Wet weight (Ws)

(kg)

Dry weight (Wd)

(kg)

Water absorption at
24 hours (%)

2.17
2.16
2.04
1.82
1.80
1.78

2.05
2.03
1.89
1.665
1.63
1.59

5.85
6.40
7.93
8.70
10.42
11.94
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Table6. Porosity test result

Replacement of
cement with
GGBFS
(percentage)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%

Wet weight
(Ws)
(kg)

Dry weight
(Wd)
(kg)

Submerged
weight (Wsub)
(kg)

Effective porosity
(%)

2.17
2.07
1.87
1.67
1.39
1.30

2.05
1.94
1.74
1.54
1.26
1.16

1.07
1.03
0.94
0.77
0.57
0.44

10.90
12.50
13.97
14.40
15.85
16.27

Table7.Carbonationdepth
Replacement of cement with GGBFS(%)

Depth of penetration(mm)

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%

50
47
42
40
37
35

Table8. Alkalinity measurement results

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

SATURATED WATER
ABSORPTION TEST
RESULT

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

GGBFS replacement( %)

pH
11.3
11.0
10.1
9.64
9.23
9.19

20
Effective Porosity (%)

Water absorption(%)

Replacement of cement with GGBFS(%)

0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%

15
10
POROSITY TEST
RESULT

5
0
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
GGBFS replacement( %)

Fig 7:Saturated water absorption test graph

Fig 8:Porosity test result graph

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14

60

CARBONATION DEPTH

ALKALINITY
MEASUREMENT
ON CONCRETE

12

50

10
40

pH

30

20

10

2
0

0
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

0%

50%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

GGBFS replacement (%)

GGBFS replacement (%)

Fig 9:Carbonationdepth graph

Fig 10:Alkalinity measurement

MECHANICAL PROPERTIES
Table 9 shows the mechanical strength obtained for different mixes. The compressive,
split and flexure studies at different ages are shown in the figures (11, 12, and 13). At the
early stage, pozzolanic reaction GGBFS was not sufficient to increase compressive strength.

Table9. Table of GGBFS Concrete Mixes

Split Tensile Strength

Compressive Strength

4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0

Mixture no
Control
GGBFS-30
GGBFS-40
GGBFS-50

3.2

7days
20
24.1
21.4
18.2

3.3

28 days
30
32.44
31.8
31.55

7days
1.08
1.14
1.15
1.16

2.5

3.44

7days
28 days

Flexural Strength

28 days
1.74
1.89
2.01
2.09

SPLIT TENSILE STRENGTH

w/p
0.45
0.45
0.45
0.45

FLEXURAL STRENGTH (Mpa)

Depth of penetration (mm)

Issue 3, Vol.2 (March 2013)

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7days
2.14
2.24
2.8
3.12

28 days
3
3.2
3.3
3.44

7 days
28 days

1.5
1
0.5
0

SCC MIX

CONTROL

30%

40%

50%

SCC MIX

Fig 11: SCC Mix Vs Flexural Strength

Fig 12: SCC Mix Vs Split Tensile

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35

32.44

31.8

COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH

30

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31.55

30
24.1

25

21.4

20

18.2

20

7days

15

28 days

10
5
0
CONTROL

30%

40%

50%

SCC MIX

Fig 13: SCC Mix VsCompressive Strength

CONCLUSION
Based on the experimental the following conclusion is drawn within
the limitation of test result.

From the above experimental work, it is concluded that when the coarse aggregate
content is reduced better flow in SCC can be achieved due to the less blocking effect.
The volume of coarse aggregate content was reduced to 46% instead of 50% to avoid
segregation.
In this study it has been found that with increase in superplasticizer dosage the
workability is increased. So that the required slump value can be obtained thus full
filling the criteria of EFNARC.
For 30% GGBFS replacement, the fresh properties observed were good as compared
to 10%, 20%, 40% and 50% GGBFS replacement. Hence if we increase the GGBFS
replacement we can have a better workable concrete.
The dosage of VMA should be properly designed as it may change the basic criterion
of SCC. In other words, the flow ability may fall below 500 mm slump if the dosage
of VMA is more than desired.
The locally available Viscosity Modifying Admixture (VMA) has a substantial
influence on the fresh properties of SCC. A small change in VMA dose makes a
substantial change in SCC properties; i.e., flowing ability, passing ability, stability
and segregation resistance.

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[2]

Bonen, D. Shah, S.P.(2005) Fresh and hardened properties of self-consolidating

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ISSN 2249-6149

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