Use of M Sand in High Strength and High Performance Concrete

Due to rapid development in urban area, use of high strength concrete in the construction industry is increasing rapidly. Mineral admixtures such as Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag (GGBS), Metakaolin, Silica fume and Alccofine are become unavoidable in high strength concrete because of their effects in hardened concrete properties. Replacing the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) by mineral admixtures is retaining the natural resources for future generation. In present scenario, replacement of river sand with manufactured sand is almost mandatory due to scarcity of the river sand. Superplasticizers are used to improve the workability of concrete at low water-cement ratio and increase the compressive strength by reducing it. In urban infrastructure development, the high strength concrete is mandatory to reduce the size of structural member, and to increase the utility space to carry heavier load. In this study M100 grade concrete mix was designed with replacement of OPC by different types of mineral admixtures using river sand and manufactured sand along with Polycarboxylate Ether (PCE) based superplasticizer. The Compressive strength, flexural strength and split tensile strength at various curing periods such as 28 and 56 days. The durability properties such as Rapid Chloride Penetration test, Water penetration test and water absorption test were carried out on the specimens at 28 and 56 days. Also, the Drying shrinkage of the concrete was tested at 14 days. From the experimental test results it is observed that, all the mixes were achieved the target mean strength, among these the Alccofine with Manufactured sand combination has achieved 21% higher than the target strength at age of 56 days and other strength parameters such as split tensile and flexural strength also slightly increased in this combination comparatively. The durability tests (Rapid chloride penetration, water penetration and drying shrinkage) were conducted and the obtained values at the age of 56 days are within permissible limit as per the codal provisions and the concrete with manufactured sand shows slightly higher value than concrete with river sand.