Improvement of bond strength and durability of recycled aggregate concrete incorporating high volume blast furnace slag

Abstract

This paper aims to experimentally investigate the effects of high volume cement replacement of blast furnace slag (BFS) on the bond, strength and durability of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). Concrete mixtures were prepared containing 0%, 15%, 30%, 45%, 60% and 75% BFS with each of recycled aggregate and natural aggregate. Measurements of the compressive and bond strength, the resistance to chloride-ion penetration and the water permeability of concrete are reported. In addition, a microhardness test was also performed to evaluate the quality of interfacial transition zone (ITZ) in concrete. Test results of the bond strength and the compressive strength of RAC mixtures, in spite of the cement replacement amount with BFS, show that the concretes result in reduced strength when compared to natural aggregate concrete (NAC) mixtures, while the strength gains for the BFS-based concrete are higher than that of the reference mixtures without BFS at long-term ages. Incorporating BFS in concrete can inherently improve the durability properties by increasing higher resistance to chloride-ion penetration and lower water permeability. This improvement in the mechanical and durability properties of the BFS-based RAC mixture may be due to the additional pozzolanic reaction of BFS, which enhances the properties of ITZ in concrete, resulting in an improvement of the strength of concrete.