Vol. 132 (2017) ACTA PHYSICA POLONICA A No.

Special issue of the 3rd International Conference on Computational and Experimental Science and Engineering (ICCESEN 2016)

Design of Self Compacting Lightweight Concrete

Using Acidic Pumice with Different Powder Materials
N. Bozkurta,∗ and V. Taşkinb
a
Bitlis Eren University, Civil Engineering Department, Bitlis, Turkey
b
Bitlis Eren University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Bitlis, Turkey
This paper reports an experimental study on the design of self-compacting lightweight concrete using acidic
pumice with different powder materials. For this aim, nine self-compacting lightweight concretes were designed
with inclusion of two different fine aggregates and different powder materials. This way, two groups of concrete
were designed. First group was composed of single type of aggregate which is acidic pumice from Bitlis Region with
barite powder, fly ash powder and pumice powder inclusion, while the second group was generated with river sand
as a fine aggregate and acidic pumice from Bitlis Region, as a coarse aggregate with the same powder addition.
In the design process, slump-flow, V-funnel and L-box tests were applied to determine the fresh properties of self-
compacting lightweight concrete. After the design, test of compressive strength, which is one of the most important
parameters of concrete, was applied to all self-compacting lightweight concretes in early age. Moreover, ultrasound
pulse velocity test was also performed on all concrete series at the same ages.
DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.132.779
PACS/topics: 62.20.–x, 81.70.Bt, 89.20.Kk

1. Introduction Sarıyer et al. [3] investigated neutron shielding proper-

ties of concrete and suggested the usability of ferro-boron
Concrete is one of the most important and most fre- in concrete in a form of particle alloy. Özavcı and Çe-
quently used construction material in civil engineering tin [4] emphasized that with the growing population, the
industry. Moreover, it a preferable material because it is amount of waste also increases. For this reason, they
cheap, easy-workable, and durable. As in every industry worked on the evaluation of waste recycling. They have
branch, some important developments have also occurred successfully determined radiation attenuation coefficients
in concrete technology. of concretes containing different wastes.
Invention of chemical admixture for concrete is one of However, the most important development in con-
the ground-breaking improvements in concrete techno- crete technology is the invention of the self-compacting-
logy. Due to the chemical admixtures, scientists and ex- concrete (SCC) with chemicals, in the late 1980s.
perts can produce special targeted concrete, more worka- The first official statement on SCC was presented by
ble in fresh state, durable in hardened state, for adverse Ozawa at East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural En-
weather conditions. gineering and Construction. Same declaration was given
In the ancient times, high water/cement ratio was used at CANMET/ACI International Conference in İstanbul
to improve workability properties of conventional con- in 1992 and gained acceleration the spreading of SCC
crete. Unfortunately, this method had led to strength concept all over the world.
and quality losses. Afterwards, high rate of cement usage The researches on SCC followed in 1994 ACI workshop
was experienced to eliminate that situation. This pre- in Bangkok and in 1996 ACI Autumnal Congress in New
caution had also resulted in the increase of the concrete Orleans. As a result, SCC has become the focus of at-
production cost. Improvements of chemical admixture tention and interest of the researchers and engineers until
technology, however, allowed to create and produce no- these days [5]. It is said that SCC, in the concrete techno-
vel concretes which have good workability, strength and logy, is the most important development observed in re-
durability [1]. cent years. SCC is very effective for passing between the
Besides the chemical admixtures, fibre inclusion in to tight re-bars and fill in the complex construction moulds,
the concrete is also another improvement in concrete without vibration workmanship in the fresh state. It also
technology. This technology can not only increase the shows high strength and durability properties in harde-
tensile strength of concrete under load but also increases ned concrete state. These fresh and hardened properties
impact resistance [2]. lead to improvement in eco-friendly production and, in
On the other hand, mineralogical powders or indus- production quality and speed [6].
trial wastes are also evaluated as concrete additives. Lightness is another property, as important as strength
and durability, in regard of earthquakes and similar di-
sasters. Based on TS EN 206 [7], lightweight concrete
(LWC) is a special kind of concrete, having unit weight
∗ corresponding author; e-mail: [email protected] between 800–2000 kg/m3 . One of the preventive protecti-
ons against the earthquakes is decreasing the death-load

(779)
780 N. Bozkurt, V. Taşkin

of the buildings, due to the lightness advantage of this new special concrete, called self-compacting lightweight
concrete. Therefore, LWCs have been used in structural concrete (SCLWC), was produced using acidic volcanic
elements for fifty years and their usage is becoming more pumice from Bitlis region. As a result, this novel con-
widespread day by day. crete shows engineering properties of wider application.
In addition, LWC can provide energy saving because
of its natural insulating character [8]. In designing of
this concrete, lightweight aggregates are generally pre- 2. Materials and methods
ferred. This way, the death-load of the buildings may be
decreased by 20–25%. This reduction leads to structural CEM I 42.5 N type cement, which was used as a binder
members having smaller cross-sectional area and design in the study, was provided from Elazığ in Turkey. Its
larger mid-span. Furthermore, earthquake behaviour of specific gravity was 3.11 and it was used at two different
buildings is also affected positively [9, 10]. dosages (350 and 400 kg/m3 ), with the powders. In the
On the other hand, workability problems and low designing of SCC, three type of powders were included
strength properties are the most important disadvantages into the mixes. These powders were barite powder (BP),
of LWC. The number of researches on usability of volca- fly ash powder (FAP) and pumice powder (PP) obtained
nic pumice in LWC production, as aggregate, has been from Muş, Sivas and Bitlis provinces, respectively. Some
gradually increasing [11]. Based on TS 3234, Turkish specific chemical and physical properties of the powders
Standard about pumice concrete, volcanic pumice is des- are presented in Table I. The powders were included into
cribed as a material having disconnected pores, cancel- the mixes in two dosages (150 and 200 kg/m3 ) to be able
lous perspective, silicate-structure, 1 gr/cm3 unit weight, to obtain sustainable mix design with the cement. Total
6 mohs-hardness and glassy texture [12]. amount of dust material (cement+powder) of all designed
According to the data obtained from Turkish Statis- mixes was kept constant at 550 kg/m3 .
tical Institute [13], 40% of 18 billion m3 of world pu- Natural river sand and fine pumice were used as fine
mice reserve is located in Turkey. Approximately 50% aggregate in the design, while pumice aggregate was used
of Turkey’s volcanic pumice reserve is located in Bitlis- as coarse aggregate. Natural river sand and all volcanic
Van region. Although volcanic pumice has many posi- pumice were obtained from Bitlis Region in Turkey. Vol-
tive advantages, like lightness and insulation, it causes canic pumice of Bitlis region has acidic character and
an increase of water absorption of concrete because of its it is a soft material, having specific gravity between 0.69
pores [11]. and 0.95 kg/dm3 . Water and hyper-plasticiser (HP) were
In this study, the positive properties of two different kept constant to observe the other material’s effect on
special concretes, SCC and LWC, have been compoun- fresh properties. Mix proportions of all designed SCL-
ded, eliminating each other’s negative properties, and a WCs are presented in Table II.

TABLE I
Chemical and some physical properties of used powder materials.

Spec. grav. Los.

BaSO4 SiO2 Al2 O3 Fe2 O3 CaO MgO SrO Na2 O Others
[g/cm3 ] in ign.
BP 4.20 94.12 2.23 0.30 0.13 0.04 0.15 2.61 - 0.3 0.14
FAP 2.26 - 38.26 16.42 5.13 27.36 1.56 4.43 0.62 5.45 0.76
PP 2.35 - 68.08 13.12 4.47 0.71 0.14 - 5.25 6.42 1.84

TABLE II
Mix proportions of SCLWCs.

Used cement, water and powders [%] Used aggr. (N:river sand; P:pumice) [%] HP
No C BP FAP PP Water 0-4 (N) 0-4(P) 4-8(P) 8-16(P) [%]
E1 11.15 4.76 0 0 16.50 39.65 0 10.58 15.86 2.0
E2 12.74 3.57 0 0 16.50 39.41 0 10.51 15.77 2.0
E3 11.15 0 8.85 0 16.50 37.20 0 9.92 14.88 2.0
E4 12.74 0 6.64 0 16.50 37.57 0 10.02 15.03 2.0
E5 11.15 0 0 8.51 16.50 37.41 0 9.95 14.93 2.0
E6 12.74 0 0 6.38 16.50 37.73 0 10.06 15.09 2.0
E7 11.15 0 0 8.51 16.50 0 43.88 7.36 11.16 2.0
E8 12.74 0 0 6.38 16.50 0 41.84 7.98 11.98 2.0
E9 12.74 0 6.64 0 16.50 0 42.10 8.21 12.31 2.0
 Design of Self Compacting Lightweight Concrete Using Acidic Pumice. . . 781

The employed test methods were slump-flow, V-funnel best fresh properties were obtained in the SCLWCs ha-
and L-box tests, which are limit criteria tests to create ving BP. Unfortunately, it is observed that the most dif-
SCC characterised fresh concrete mix. Fresh concrete ficulties of the design process during the laboratory work
mixes, providing SCC requirements, were filled into the were experienced when working on designing SCLWCs
moulds (150 × 150 × 150 mm3 ) and demoulded after one with included BP.
day. Then, all designed SCLWCs, in 1-day hardened It was noticed that the adhesiveness and viscosity-
state, were cured to the ages of 3, 7, 14 and 28-days resistance of BP were very low. This was causing bleeding
in water at 21 ± 2 ◦C. After curing period, compressive problems in designed concretes. Furthermore, the usage
strength and ultrasonic-pulse vvelocity (UPV) tests were of BP is both, increases the concrete weight and decreases
carried out on designed SCLWCs, in hardened state. the hydration temperature.
On the other hand, FAP inclusion has shown better
3. Result and discussion
characteristics in terms of fresh properties and was follo-
The fresh properties of all designed SCLWCs are pre- wed by PP. The lightest concrete design was obtained in
sented in Table III. Clearly, it can be seen that there the SCLWC including all aggregates acidic pumice with
is an improvement in all fresh properties, when the ce- PP (E8). Though the usage of river sand as fine aggre-
ment dosage has been increased. If Table III is analysed gate brought advantages for fresh properties, it induced
based on powder inclusion, it is seen that the relatively increasing fresh unit weights of the designed SCLWCs.

TABLE III
Fresh concrete properties of SCLWCs.

Slump-flow Slump-flow Conc. temp. Fresh conc.

Concrete V-Funnel L-box
diameter time, T500 -lab. temp. unit weight
mix. [sn] (H2/H1)
[mm] [sn] [ ◦C] [kg/m3 ]
E1 700 1.92 4.90 0.81 1.9 1910
E2 800 0.75 4.21 0.85 3.4 1930
E3 790 1.2 7.39 0.99 2.9 1827
E4 630 1.23 6.32 0.87 3.5 1820
E5 625 3.10 7.81 0.80 3.8 1814
E6 705 3.02 8.34 0.93 4.4 1860
E7 620 2.85 5.26 0.81 2.1 1565
E8 700 2.65 6.24 0.83 4.8 1433
E9 785 1.08 5.65 0.84 3.8 1571

Figure 1 shows the interaction plots of fresh concrete Figure 1a shows the flow-diameter, the flow-time inte-
properties for all designed concretes. When the inte- raction graph up to 500 mm diameter. This graph shows
raction graphs in Fig. 1 are examined, it is seen that there that in fresh concrete designs using FAP, the spreading
is a good relationship between fresh concrete properties. times to a diameter of 500 mm are similar and very low.
This result indicates that the FAP usage increases the
fresh concrete viscosity.
On the other hand, although the specific gravity of
BP is very high, compared to other powders, an impro-
vement has been observed in the flow-time with a decrea-
sing amount of BP. This situation excludes the possibility
of better spreading of fresh concrete, designed with he-
avy materials. It is also understood that the viscosities
of fresh concrete mixes using PP are higher than those
of the others.
Figure 1b also shows that there is a similar relations-
hip between flow and spread times. According to Fig. 1b,
reduction of the amount of heavy powder material in
fresh concrete mixes and the usage of powders having
Fig. 1. Interaction graphs of fresh concrete properties high cohesion ability gave the best results.
for all designed concretes.
782 N. Bozkurt, V. Taşkin

Figures 1c and d show the interaction plots between the using FAP were relatively close to those of the BP-series.
spreading diameter and spreading speed and the ability The noteworthy result is that concretes with the hig-
to pass and fill. According to these graphs, the ability of hest unit weight gave apparently lower strength values,
passing of fresh concrete and filling ability are improved while lighter concrete series gave higher concrete com-
when the diameter of spread is increased in the designed pressive strengths. The best example is the E8, E9 series
fresh concrete. Similarly, improvement in the ability to versus the E1, E2 concrete series in Fig. 3. This con-
fill and pass by increasing the speed of spread is observed. clusion confirms that the concrete series with the higher
pozzolanic activity can give higher strength, even though
the unit weight of the concrete is low.
4. Conclusions
The successful design of SCLWC was carried out using
acidic volcanic pumice with different powders. The re-
latively best result was obtained from the SCLWC, in-
cluding the river sand and BP, according to the fresh
Fig. 2. Hardened state test results: (a) compressive properties. However usage of BP had caused bleeding
strength test results, (b) UPV test results. problem, because of its weak cohesion properties. In the
fresh concrete design process, usage of FAP gave better
Hardened state test results of SCLWCs are shown in fresh and hardened concrete properties, and was follo-
Fig. 2. As an expected result, compressive strength and wed by PP containing samples. The best compressive
UPV-values have increased together with increasing cu- strength and UPV test results were obtained in the se-
ring age. The best results were obtained from the E4 ries E4, while the worst result was obtained in series E7,
series for all curing days and for both tests. without river sand. This study has shown that lighter
E4 was including natural river sand and FAP. E7–E9 concrete or concrete having the lower unit weight can
series were including acidic volcanic pumice aggregate, give better strength properties. Usage of all these po-
as fine and coarse fraction. Between these three series wders in concrete mix can provide sustainable concrete
the better result was obtained from the E9, having FAP design. This usage leads to eco-friendly concrete design
inclusion. It shows that FAP inclusion is resulting in and energy saving.
the improvement of hardened state properties of SCL-
WCs. These results also show that even if sand affects References
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