EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON SOME PARAMETERS OF RICE STRAW ASH - FLY ASH GEOPOLYMER MORTAR

Abstract

Concrete is one of the main materials in the construction industry. The Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) concrete is vastly used as the main binder in construction industry which leads to depletion of natural resources in order to manufacture large quantities of OPC. Environmental hazards result from OPC production have become a major concern today. Nevertheless, Geopolymer concrete production (GC) is a new environment friendly construction material, due to less emission of carbon dioxide. An experimental study on some engineering properties of Geopolymer Mortar (GM) prepared using the fly ash (FA) and rice straw ash (RSA) is presented in this research. FA was replaced with RSA by 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25% where the sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide were used as alkaline activator. The casted GM was divided in two main groups to study the effect of curing temperature. The first group was cured at room temperature for 28 days. The second group was cured at 80ºC for 24 hours in an oven curing tank then in room temperature for 27 days. The test results show that compression strength and flexural strength of geopolymer mortar increase when the percentage of RSA increases up to 5% replacement. The geopolymer materials exhibited strength increases after temperature exposure for 28 day.