Evaluating the Performance of Early-Age Fly Ash Concrete Subjected to Steam and Autoclave Heat Treatments
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 35, Issue 12
Abstract
In the fabrication of precast concrete components, rapid early-age strength development during the hardening process is crucial to facilitate formwork operation and production cost. In this study, heat treatment was adopted to boost the compressive strength of cement paste and concrete mixtures over a threshold of 40 MPa at 12 h by applying steam curing and 3 h of autoclave at 180°C sequentially. Cement paste samples were prepared using different fly ash (FA) contents and water-to-binder (w/b) ratios, and concrete samples produced in accordance with the densified mixture design algorithm (DMDA) method. The compressive strength of the paste samples with w/b ratios of 0.23 and 0.30 attained the threshold strength (40 MPa) at 12 h. Compressive strength in the cement paste after autoclaving was 41% to 102% higher than at 12 h and was significantly increased in the FA samples. The 12 h compressive strength of concrete mixtures with FA all attained in excess of 40 MPa, while the reference mixture exhibited below 40 MPa (w/b ratio ; cement content ). The FA content designed by DMDA method at an alpha ratio () of 5% was identified as the optimum FA level in the concrete mixture. The higher w/b ratios and lower cement content exhibited twelfth hour compressive strengths below 40 MPa. The compressive strength of autoclave-treated concrete samples designed with cement content of surpassed 80 MPa, while the lower-cement-content mixtures showed lower-strength values. All of the concrete mixtures attained high ultrasonic pulse velocity results (over ), indicating good durability.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the European Project H2020 TREEADS: A Holistic Fire Management Ecosystem for Prevention, Detection and Restoration of Environmental Disasters (REF: 101036926). The authors are also grateful to the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) for providing support (MOST 111-2923-E-011 -003 -MY4).
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Oct 19, 2022
Accepted: May 5, 2023
Published online: Sep 27, 2023
Published in print: Dec 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Feb 27, 2024
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