Strength and durability studies on high volume ready-made ultrafine slag-based high-strength concrete

Abstract

Steel industries produce Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) as a waste material and have a high potential for producing concrete as a partial substitute for cement. The average particle size of GGBFS used was 17.5 μm. It fills voids and modifies the microstructure and, in turn, enhances the strength and durability of concrete. In the present work, commercially available ultrafine slag (ready-made ultrafine slag (RUFS)) with an average size of 5 μm was used as a mineral admixture with three different percentages of 30, 40, and 50 as substitutes for cement. Results of the present work were compared to the precursor slag of this author's earlier works. According to the experimental results, it was understood that RUFS with 40% substitution for cement obtained better performance among three different percentages used. Compared with the author's earlier works, RUFS performed better than precursor slag and had slightly higher results than that of concrete with 5 to 15% of RUFS. Hence, it is suggested that cement may be replaced with high-volume ready-made ultrafine concrete by 40% without compromising its performance.