Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

SUSTAINABLE CONCRETE USING HIGH VOLUME FLY ASH FROM THERMAL POWER PLANTS

R. Thangaraj and R. Thenmozhi

Abstract

The production of OPC consumes large amount of natural resources and energy and also releases substantial quantity of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. The cement Industries all over the world produces 1.5 billion tons of OPC (ordinary portland cement) each year and it releases about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 into the Atmosphere. As a remedy to theses issues, it is essential to find alternative binders to make concrete environmental friendly and the best solution is to replace the amount of OPC in concrete with byproduct materials such as fly ash. An important achievement in this regard is the development of high volume fly ash (HVFA) concrete that utilizes up to 60 percent of fly ash and yet possesses excellent mechanical properties with enhanced durability performance. Considering the above, experimental study on HVFA concrete beams has been made by providing 8mm dia 2 legged stirrups, at ‘d’ and ‘d/2’ depth of beams with 0.75d and half of 0.75d spacing. An attempt is also made to compare the load versus deflection of the HVFA concrete beams with conventional RCC beams and evaluated the performances of the proposed methods of confinement. In earth quake regions it becomes essential to construct the structures as a ductile one. Sudden failures due to poor workability of RC structures can be avoided, if critical sections are able to undergo large plastic deformations and to absorb large amount of strain energy. The results indicated that the confinement in the form of stirrups improves the ultimate strength and ductile behaviour of the concrete.