Comparison of Strength Characteristics of Concrete Made by TSMA using Fly Ash and Nominal Concrete Made by NM Approach

Published on 04 Mar 2021. Written by Sankarsan Mohanty

It is known that wastage in India in the construction industry is as high as 30%. This is a large, yet relatively simple and straightforward challenge needs to be tackled by engineers. These wastages are activities that absorb man hours, resources and materials but create no value. In this project, you will use those waste materials to make something productive by making a concrete using recycled aggregate and fly ash. After making concrete you will compare the compressive as well as flexural strength characteristics of the concrete made through NMA and TSMA.

Normal mixing approach (NMA) is the layman process where all the materials are mixed in defined proportion. The problem with this approach is when concrete gets hardened some void space remains inside it which affects its strength.

In a two-stage mixing approach (TSMA) a thin layer of cement slurry is created on the surface of RA which helps in feeling those void spaces. This results in the higher strength of the composite.

In this project, you are going to prepare two different sample of concrete using above two mixing approaches and determine compressive strength, the flexural strength of those on day 7 and 28.

Project Description:

Cement: Ordinary Portland cement of 43 grade satisfying the requirements of IS: 8112-1989. The specific gravity of cement was found to be 3.005.
Fine Aggregates: The sand generally collected from Haryana. Sand is the main component grading zone-I of IS: 383-1978 was used with a specific gravity of 2.62 and water absorption of 1 % at 24 hours.
Coarse Aggregates: Mechanically crushed stone from a quarry situated in Haryana with 20 mm maximum size, satisfying to IS: 383-1978 was used. The specific gravity was found to be 2.63 and water absorption is 0.5 % at 24 hours.
Recycled Coarse Aggregates: Aggregates obtained by the processing of construction and demolition waste are known as recycled aggregates. RCA for the experimental analysis was procured from the C & D waste plant in Delhi which is in collaboration with Municipal Corporation Of Delhi.
Fly Ash: Fly ash is used as partial replacement of cement which replaces 10% of the total cementitious material in all the cases of the experiments. Class F fly ash is used from Haryana having a specific gravity as 2.4 and satisfying IS 3812-1999.

Project Implementation:

At first collect all those materials mentioned above, which are required for preparing concrete.
Then, prepare a sample of concrete by normal mixing approach. First, mix coarse and fine aggregate. After that add water and cementitious materials.
Prepare another sample of concrete by a two-stage mixing approach. In this process at first mix coarse and fine aggregate for 60 seconds and then add half of the water for the sample and mix it for another 60 seconds. After that add cementitious material and mix it for more 30 seconds. At the end add rest of water and mix it for 120 seconds.
Dry both the samples in normal atmospheric condition for 28 days.
On the 7th and 28th-day test both the sample for compression and flexural strength. Observe which sample is rich in engineering properties.

Project Brief: After success full completion of the project you can observe that concrete prepared by TSMA process will have more strength than the other sample.

Software requirements:

Minitab: You can use this software for plotting and comparing your result data.

Kit required to develop Comparison of Strength Characteristics of Concrete Made by TSMA using Fly Ash and Nominal Concrete Made by NM Approach:

Technologies you will learn by working on Comparison of Strength Characteristics of Concrete Made by TSMA using Fly Ash and Nominal Concrete Made by NM Approach:

Comparison of Strength Characteristics of Concrete Made by TSMA using Fly Ash and Nominal Concrete Made by NM Approach

Project Description:

Project Implementation:

Software requirements:

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