Ain Shams Engineering Journal (2011) 2, 7986

Ain Shams University

Ain Shams Engineering Journal

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CIVIL ENGINEERING

Eect of y ash and silica fume on compressive strength of

self-compacting concrete under dierent curing conditions
Heba A. Mohamed

Department of Structural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Egypt

Received 2 January 2011; revised 15 May 2011; accepted 4 June 2011
Available online 2 July 2011

KEYWORDS
Self-compacting concrete;
Fly ash;
Silica fume;
Compressive strength;
Curing condition

Abstract This study presents an experimental study on self-compacting concrete (SCC) with two
cement content. The work involves three types of mixes, the rst consisted of different percentages
of y ash (FA), the second uses different percentages of silica fume (SF), and the third uses a
mixture of FA and SF. After each mix preparation, nine cylinder specimens are cast and cured.
Three specimens are cured in water for 28 days, three specimens are cured in water for 7 days,
and three specimens are left in air for 28 days. The slump and V-funnel test are carried out on
the fresh SCC and concrete compressive strength values are determined. The results show that
SCC with 15% of SF gives higher values of compressive strength than those with 30% of FA
and water cured specimens for 28 days give the highest values of compressive strength.
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1. Introduction
Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is considered as a concrete
which can be placed and compacted under its self weight with
little or no vibration effort, and which is at the same time cohesive enough to be handled without segregation or bleeding of
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fresh concrete. SCC mixes usually contain superplasticizer,

high content of nes and/or viscosity modifying additive
(VMA). Whilst the use of superplasticizer maintains the uidity, the ne content provides stability of the mix resulting in
resistance against bleeding and segregation. The use of y
ash and blast furnace slag in SCC reduces the dosage of
superplasticizer needed to obtain similar slump ow compared
to concrete mixes made with only Portland cement [1].
It is estimated that SCC may result in up to 40% faster construction than using normal concrete [2,3]. The elastic modulus
and shrinkage of SCC didnt differ signicantly from the
corresponding properties of normal concrete [4]. The results
of tests carried out by Al-Feel and Al-Saffar [5] to study the
effect of curing methods on the compressive, splitting, and exural strength of self-compacting concrete showed that water
cured specimens gave the highest results of concrete
compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and exural
strength than specimens cured in air by about 11%, 10%,

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H.A. Mohamed

and 11% respectively. The results also indicated that SCC gave
high early concrete compressive strength. Ren and Wang [6],
studied the application of high y ash content concrete
(HFCC) with dipy construction formwork. Their test results
showed that, with the replacement of y ash increase the
strength of HFCC up to 50%.
The research carried out by Bentz et al. [7], indicated that
curing conditions have signicant effect on the degree of
hydration of cement. They showed that for specimens (initially
cured at 100% relative humidity (RH) for 6 or 12 h) exposed to
90% RH, hydration process discontinued as all remaining
capillary water was lost due to evaporation. Whilst curing under sealed condition, in particular for concretes with W/C ratio
of 0.4 or over, or keeping the surface as saturated were
adequate.
The tests carried out by Yazicioglu et al. [8] to investigate
the inuence of curing conditions on the mechanical properties
of self-compacting concrete, demonstrated that water cured
specimens always have the highest values followed by sealedcured specimens and air-cured irrespective of type and age of
concrete and test methods. For both concrete compressive
and tensile strength tests, the SCC with silica fume gives the
highest values followed by SCC with y ash and then PC
concrete for all curing periods and conditions. An experimental program carried out by Ravikumar et al. [9], aimed at
producing and evaluating SCC made with high volumes of kiln
ash. The results of this study suggested that quarry dust (QD),

silica fume (SF) and kiln ash (KA) combinations can improve
the workability of SCC, more than QD, SF and KA individually. KA can also have a positive inuence on the mechanical
properties at early ages while SF improved bond between
aggregatematrix resulting from the formation of a less porous
transition zone in concrete. SF can better reducing effect on
total water absorption while QD and KA will not have the
same effect, at 28 days.
2. Objectives of the study
The main objective of this study is to determine the suitable
percentage of y ash, and silica fume in SCC that gives the
highest value of concrete compressive strength. As well as
studying the inuence of different curing conditions.
3. Experimental program
In this investigation, 450 cylinders are tested to investigate
concrete compressive strength of SCC with different percentages of y ash, silica fume and the combination of y ash
and silica fume respectively. In addition to investigate the effect of curing conditions on concrete compressive strength.
All test specimens are 100 mm in diameter and 200 mm in
length as show in Fig. 1. In this study, the major test parameters are: cement content, the percentage of y ash, the percentage of silica fume, and water curing periods.

Table 1

Chemical composition of silica fume.

Constituent

Content (%)

SiO2
Fe2O3
Al2O3
CaO
MgO
K2O
N2O
SO3
C1
H2O

97
0.5
0.2
0.2
0.5
0.5
0.2
0.15
0.01
0.5

Table 2

Mix proportions for cement content = 450 kg/m3.

Cement content (kg/m3)

Water content (kg/m3)
Coarse aggregate (kg/m3)
Fine aggregate (kg/m3)
W/C ratio

450a
189
612
1109
0.42

a
The quantities of FA and SF are used as the replacement of
cement content by percentage as shown in Table 4.

Table 3

Figure 1

The test specimens.

Mix proportions for cement content = 550 kg/m3.

Cement content (kg/m3)

Water content (kg/m3)
Coarse aggregate (kg/m3)
Fine aggregate (kg/m3)
W/C ratio

550
231
612
909
0.42

Effect of y ash and silica fume on compressive strength of self-compacting concrete

The percentages of FA and SF to cement for both cement content.

Table 4
Mix No.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
a

81

Type I (FA/cement) %

Type II (SF/cement) %

Type III (FA and SF/cement) %

(10/90)
(15/85)
(20/80)
(25/75)
(30/70)
(35/65)
(40/60)
(50/50)

(10/90)
(15/85)
(20/80)

(10
(15
(20
(25
(30
(40
(15
(20
(25
(30
(35
(20
(25
(30

and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and
and

10/80)
10/75)
10/70)
10/65)
10/60)
10/50)
15/70)
15/65)
15/60)
15/55)
15/50)
20/60)
20/55)
20/50)

Each mix consisted of 9 cylinders.

Table 5

3.2. Mix proportions

Typical acceptance criteria for SCC.

Test method

Slump-ow
The spread diameter (T50)
V-funnel

Unit

mm
s
s

Typical range of values

Min

Max

650
2
6

800
10
12

3.1. Materials properties

The constituent materials for the production of SCC are discussed as follows:

For this study, two cement contents are used (i.e., 450 kg/m3
and 550 kg/m3), the quantities of materials used for two
cement content are illustrated in Tables 2 and 3. Three types
of concrete mix are chosen, the rst one (type I) was combination of plain concrete (PC) and y ash (FA), the second
(type II) was combination of PC and silica fume (SF),
and the third one (type III) was combination of PC, FA, and
SF. The percentages of FA and SF to cement are shown in
Table 4.
4. Tests of fresh SCC

3.1.1. Cementations materials

Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) is used in all test specimens,
the tests carried out on the used cement to determine its physical properties according Egyptian Code of Practice [10]. Fly
ash and silica fume are used as a replacement of the cement
content by different percentage to reduce the dosage of chemical admixtures needed to obtain the required slump ow. The
chemical composition of Silica fume are given in Table 1.
3.1.2. Aggregates
20 mm nominal maximum size dolomite is used as coarse
aggregate and the ne aggregate was the natural sand free
from impurities.
3.1.3. Chemical additives
In this study, Viscocrete 5930 is used to increase the ow capability of the concrete and improve the viscosity. The used dosage of Viscocrete was 2% of the total volume of concrete.

To evaluate the ability of SCC in the owability and viscosity,

the slump-ow test and V-funnel test are carried on the fresh
SCC. Typical acceptance criteria for SCC are listed in Table
5. In slump test, the cone is lled with concrete and then lifted
vertically and the time measurement is started as shown in
Fig. 2. The spread diameter T50 (i.e., the time of ow to reach
a diameter of 500 mm) and the general visual appearance of
the concrete are recorded. V-funnel test is used to evaluate
the viscosity of SCC, the test is carried out by lling a funnel
with about 12 l of concrete and then measured the time in
seconds that the concrete takes to drain of the funnel as shown
in Fig. 3. The results obtained from these tests indicated that,
SCC mixes had good lling and passing ability as well as
segregation resistance, the time recorded for 500 mm diameter
of concrete, the nal concrete diameter, and the time in V-funnel increased with the increase in the percentage of y ash and
silica fume.

82

H.A. Mohamed

Figure 2

Figure 3

The slump-ow test.

The V-funnel test.

5. Test results and discussion

5.1. Concrete compressive strength
The obtained values of concrete compressive strength according to the different used percentage of FA and SF for both

cement content are shown in Figs. 4 and 5. These gures

indicate that, in type I (with FA) the higher the percentage
of FA the higher the values of compressive strength until
30% of FA, after that the increase in the percentage of FA lead
to decrease in values of concrete compressive strength.
However, in type II with SF the highest value of concrete com-

Effect of y ash and silica fume on compressive strength of self-compacting concrete

b
Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

35
air

30

7 days in water

25

28 days in water

20
15
10
5
0
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

30
air

25

7 days in water
28 days in water

20
15
10

60%

5
0
0%

10%

20%

fly ash (%)

30
25
20
15
air

10

7 days in water

28 days in water

0
0%

40%

50%

60%

5%

10%
15%
S ilica fume (%)

20%

25%

35
30
25
20
15
air

10

7 days in water

28 days in water

0
0%

5%

10%
15%
S ilica fume (%)

20%

25%

Compressive strength for type II: (a) cement content = 550 kg/m3; (b) cement content = 450 kg/m3.

35
30
25
20
F.A.= 10 %

15

F.A.= 15 %

10

F.A.= 20 %
F.A.= 25 %

F.A.= 30 %

30
25
20
15
F.A.= 10 %

10

F.A.= 15 %
F.A.= 20 %

F.A.= 25 %
F.A.= 30 %

0
0

Figure 6
kg/m3.

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

35

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

40

Figure 5

30%
fly ash (%)

Compressive strength for type I: (a) cement content = 550 kg/m3; (b) cement content = 450 kg/m3.

Figure 4

83

10
15
20
25
Water curing period (days)

30

10
15
20
25
Water curing period (days)

30

Effect of curing conditions on compressive strength of type I: (a) cement content = 550 kg/m3; (b) cement content = 450

pressive strength is obtained from 15% of SF. It can be noticed

that specimens of type II with 15% of SF as a replacement
cement content gives higher values of concrete compressive
strength than specimens of type I with 30% of FA by about
12% and 10% for 550 kg/m3 and 450 kg/m3 cement content
respectively. The values of concrete compressive strength versus water curing periods are plotted in Figs. 6 and 7. It can
be seen that the highest value of compressive strength for all

test cases is obtained from specimens cured in water for

28 days followed by those cured in water for 7 days, and air
cured specimens are given the lowest value of compressive
strength. Figs. 810 give the comparison between two cement
content for values of compressive strength with different
percentage of FA, SF and FA and SF. The results show that
the best percentage for combination of FA and SF is 10% of
FA and 10% of SF for both cement content, where the values

84

H.A. Mohamed

40

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

Compressive strength ( N / mm2)

35
30
25
20
15
S.F.= 10 %

10

S.F.= 15 %

S.F.= 20 %

0
0

10

15

20

25

30

35
30
25
20
15
S.F.= 10 %

10

S.F.= 15 %

S.F.= 20 %

0
0

Water curing period (days)

40

Compressive strength (N / mm2 )

15

20

25

30

Effect of curing conditions on compressive strength of type II: (a) cement content = 550 kg/m3; (b) cement content = 450

35
30

F.A. 10 %

35

S.F. 10 %

Compressive strength (N / mm2)

Figure 7
kg/m3.

10

Water curing period (days)

F.A.10%+S.F.10%

25
20
15
10
5
0
450

550

F.A. 20 %
30
25

S.F. 20 %
F.A.20%+S.F.20%

20
15
10
5
0

Cement content (Kg / m3)

Figure 8 Comparison of compressive strength of type I, II, and

III with ratio 10%.

450

550

Cement content (Kg / m3)

Figure 10 Comparison of compressive strength of type I, II, and

III with ratio 20%.

5.2. Failure mode

45

Compressive strength (N / mm2)

F.A. 15 %
40
35

S.F. 15 %

The modes of failure are shown in Figs. 11 and 12. It can be

seen from these gures that no segregation occurred in tested
SCC mixes, because of the good distribution of aggregate in
concrete matrix. The failure may happened in aggregate as
shown in Fig. 11 or in the matrix as shown in Fig. 12 and this
referred to there is a good bond between aggregate and matrix.

F.A.15%+S.F.15%

30
25
20
15

6. Conclusions

10
5

Figure 9 Comparison of compressive strength of type I, II, and

III with ratio 15%.

This paper presents an experimental program to describe the

effect of curing conditions on the SCC with different percentage of FA and SC to determine the best percentage of FA, SC,
or their combination with regard to concrete compressive
strength. Based on the obtained results, the following main
conclusions can be drawn:

of concrete compressive strength in this case higher than the

values in case of 15% FA and 15% SF by about 19% and
18% for 550 kg/m3 and 450 kg/m3 cement content respectively.
While, the increase can be estimated by about 24% and 22%
respectively in case of 20% FA and 20% SF, where these increment percentages of concrete compressive strength are shown
in Tables 6 and 7.

 The higher the percentage of FA the higher the values of

concrete compressive strength until 30% of FA. However,
the highest value of concrete compressive strength is
obtained from mix containing 15% SF.
 SCC mixes with 15% SF as a replacement of cement
content give higher values of concrete compressive strength
than those with 30% FA by about 12% and 10% for
550 kg/m3 and 450 kg/m3 cement content respectively.

0
450

550

Cement content (Kg / m3)

Effect of y ash and silica fume on compressive strength of self-compacting concrete

85

Increment percentage of concrete compressive strength from 15% FA and 15 % SF to 10 % FA and 10 % SF.

Table 6

Concrete compressive strength (N/mm2)

(FA 10% + SA 10%)

Concrete compressive strength

(N/mm2) (FA 15% + SA 15%)

Increment
percentage (%)

450 kg/m3
Cement content

550 kg/m3
Cement content

450 kg/m3
Cement content

550 kg/m3
Cement content

450 kg/m3

550 kg/m3

25.4

29.1

21.5

24.4

18

19

Increment percentage of concrete compressive strength from 20% FA and 20 % SF to 10 % FA and 10 % SF.

Table 7

Concrete compressive strength

(N/mm2) (FA 10% + SA 10%)

Concrete compressive
strength (N/mm2) (FA 20% + SA 20%)

Increment
percentage (%)

450 kg/m3
Cement content

550 kg/m3
Cement content

450 kg/m3
Cement content

550 kg/m3
Cement content

450 kg/m3

550 kg/m3

25.4

29.1

20.8

23.4

22

24

Failure at aggregate

Figure 11

The mode of failure in aggregate.

 The highest value of compressive strength for all test cases

is obtained from specimens cured in water for 28 days and
the lowest value is obtained from air cured specimens.
 SCC with 10% FA and 10% SF gave the highest value of
concrete compressive strength for SCC consisted of combination of FA and SF.

References
[1] Yahia A, Tanimura M, Shimabukuro A, Shimoyama Y. Effect of
rheological parameters on self compactability of concrete containing various mineral admixtures. In: Skarendahl A, Peterson O,
editors. Proceedings of the rst RILEM international symposium
on self-compacting concrete, Stockholm, 1999. p. 52335.
[2] Perssoiv B. Technical Report, Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science, Report 9803: 12, Division of Building Materials, Lund
Institute of Technology, Lund, 1998.
[3] Nocher M. Flowing Smoothly and Quietly, Advanced Concrete
and Masonry Center, Concrete Quarterly, Issue 198, UK, 2001.

Figure 12

The mode of failure in the matrix.

[4] BertilPersson A. Comparison between mechanical properties of

self-compacting concrete and the corresponding properties of
normal concrete. Cement Concr Res 2001:1938.
[5] Al-Feel JR, Al Saffar NS. Properties of self-compacting concrete
at different curing condition and their comparison with properties
of normal concrete. Al-Radain Eng 2009;17(3):308.
[6] Zhengyue Ren, Lijiu Wang. Research of High Fly Ash Content in
Concrete with Dippy Construction Formwork. International
Workshop on Sustainable Development and Concrete
Technology.
[7] Bentz DP, Snyder KA, Stutzman PE. The effect of Curing
Conditions, Hydration of Portland cement. In: Presented at the
10th international congress chemistry of cement, vol. 2, Sweden,
1997.
[8] Salih Yazicioglu, Sinan Caliskan, Kazim Turk. Effect of curing
conditions on the engineering properties of self-compacting
concrete. Ind J Eng Mater Sci 2006;13:259.
[9] Ravikumar MS, Selvamony C, Kannan SU, Basil Gnanappa S.
Behavior of self-compacted self curing kiln ash concrete with
various admixtures. ARPN J Eng Appl Sci 2009;4(8).
[10] ECP 203 2007, The Egyptian Code for Design and Construction
of Concrete Structures Tests Guide, Cairo, Egypt, 2007.

86

H.A. Mohamed
Heba A. Mohamed is a Lecturer in Structural
Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University. Her topics of
research interested are Seismic behavior of at
slabs and shear strength.