TERNARY BLEND OF CONCRETE USING SLAG, CEMENT AND FLY

ASH AS SUPPLEMENTARY CEMENTITIOUS MATERIALS.

Introduction.
As sustainability moves to the forefront as a major initiative for the construction industries and the
society as a whole, emphasis on producing concrete mixtures with increased volume fractions of supplementary
cementitious materials (SCM) and industrial by-products, such as ground granulated blast furnace slag and fly
ash, has grown rapidly. In addition to the beneficial utilization of these waste materials that otherwise need to be
land filled, these materials individually improve specific engineering properties of concrete significantly and
offer the potential for high volume of cement replacement in concrete. High volume cement replacement will
lead to sustainable concrete with minimal environmental impact, a lower CO 2 foot-print and lower embodied
energy. New generation concretes with high volume cement replacement, which ensure long-term durability,
are expected to revolutionize the construction industry.
Use of mineral admixtures or supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) has been explored to
improve specific aspects of concrete performance. Blended cements, which are essentially binary blends of
cement and SCMs have been used. However, the use of one SCM may not provide the required performance
characteristics. While binary blends improve specific aspects of performance, the overall performance is not
improved since other properties are compromised. For instance, silica fume is known to provide enhanced
strength gain and reduced permeability, however, is extremely prone to restrained shrinkage cracking. Silica
fume, especially in low water to cement systems produces autogenous shrinkage and has a very high heat
release. Similarly, it is shown that fly ash reduces potential for restrained shrinkage cracking, but its low
reactivity is a major hindrance to the development of concrete consisting of large volumes of fly ash. It is
increasingly becoming evident that use of single SCM is not sufficient. The solution lies in using ternary blends
where the beneficial effects of one or more SCMs can be harnessed.
Ternary blends allow greater flexibility in achieving properties where potential benefits from two SCMs
are realized simultaneously with possible synergistic effects. Ternary blends comprising of slag and fly ash
offer an economically attractive solution, which can lead to high performance concrete. Concrete produced with
a combination of slag, fly ash and Portland cement has proven to enhance concrete performance by producing
higher long-term strength, improving workability, while requiring less water while reducing efflorescence and
permeability. Some synergy has also been reported. For instance,use of 25% slag and 25% fly ash provide lower
coefficient of permeability than 50% fly ash or 50% slag (fly-ash-slag-recycled aggregate-blend, miadata 16).
Very little work has been reported in the literature on the ternary blends with high volume slag and fly ash
replacement and the little information available suggests low reactivity.
Specific target of developing concrete mix designs using high volume ternary fly-ash-slag blends is to
achieve compressive strengths suitable for structural applications. An empirical approach of testing different
concrete mixture compositions with varying proportions of slag and fly ash replacement to determine optimal
proportions of the two materials is complicated by the fact that the chemical composition of fly ash and slag are
not standardized and vary depending on the source. A more fundamental approach is based on the recognition
that high performance in concrete is achieved by specific enhancements to the microstructure produced by the
SCMs. Therefore, if the hydration in the ternary system a systematic way for achieving the desired strength
could be achieved by blending fly ash and slag in the right proportion depending upon their compositions.
The key performance indicator of concrete, strength, depend upon the extent of hydration and
microstructure of the hydrated cement system; An understanding of the reactions in the ternary system, reaction

products formed and microstructure evolution as a function of the chemical composition of the reacting species
is therefore essential.
Background (Review) and Identification of gaps
Hydration is a very complex multi-scale phenomenon involving changes in state and in the internal
structure with time .When portland cement hydrates, it forms calcium-silicate hydrate gel (CSH) and calcium
hydroxide (Ca(OH)2). CSH is the "glue" that provides strength and holds the concrete together. the products of
hydration form within the fluid filled spaces of cement paste that results in a network of pores and a pore
structure .
The progressing hydration and changing microstructure result in continuous strength gain and
development of the mechanical, the transport and the physical properties of concrete with time. The evolution of
microstructure as a result of hydration comprises of a change in the density and elastic properties of products of
hydration and a decrease in the porosity with time. The current understanding of the hydration process has been
assimilated by studying the different aspects of the hydration reaction. For example the rate and degree of
hydration is studied using calorimetry and water loss measurements ; the microstructure and morphology of
products have been studied using electron microscopy ; the change in porosity and pore structure of hardening
cement paste are studied using intrusive techniques such as mercury intrusion porosimetry, nitrogen sorption,
small angle neutron scattering etc; and the evolution of elastic material properties and compressive strength are
studied using mechanical tests on control specimens . All the techniques mentioned above are laboratory-based
and provide very specific information about a very specific aspect of hydration.
Slag and Fly ash have been used as SCMs. The chemical composition of these materials is quite
variable. Considering the phase diagram the ranges may even overlap. Currently the slag and fly ash are not
regulated in India and the composition depends on the source .
The reaction in the presence of SCM is often more complex than cement.When slag or fly ash is used as
part of the cementitious material in a concrete mixture, it reacts with Ca(OH) 2 to form additional CSH, which in
turn densifies the microstructure, lowers the permeability and increases strength of the concrete. Permeability is
related to the proportion of CSH to Ca(OH) 2 in the cement paste. The higher the proportion of CSH to Ca(OH) 2,
the lower the permeability of the concrete. Slags are very close to cement and depending on the oxide
composition may be hydraulic. Generally, the rate of strength development is slower than for a Portland cement,
which is attributed to slower reaction of slag with water. Fly ash on the other hand, may exhibit hydraulic
activity if the lime content is high (as in Class C Fly Ash). Detailed investigations into the hydration of binary
fly ash and slag systems as a function of the chemical composition of the reacting species have been conducted
and sufficient body of literature exists on the influence on the pore structure. Binary blends are currently
available commercially in India as PPC.
The latent hydraulic reaction of GGBS involves the activation of the ggbs by alkalis and sulfates to form
its own hydration products. Some of these combine with the Portland cement products to form further hydrates
which have a pore blocking effect. The result is a hardened cement paste with more of the very small gel pores
and fewer of the much larger capillary pores for the same total pore volume. The beneficial effect of the porerefinement produced by slag is the decrease in permeability and increased resistance to sulfate attack. The
higher the percentage of slag cement in a concrete mixture, the lower the permeability of the concrete. Concrete
with lower permeability can generally be achieved by substituting between 25 to 65 percent slag cement for
portland cement . The pore refinement, however, results in an increase in contraction stress from capillary
tension effects in fines pores resulting in higher autogenous shrinkage. Slag concrete therefore exhibits higher
cracking sensitivity under restrained conditions.

Use of fly ash as a cement replacement has been investigated over the past few decades. The available
information suggests the fly ash provides beneficiation by enhancing long term properties such as permeability,
sulfate resistance and alkali silica reactivity. The available literature suggests that in binary blends, fly ash
enters into a reaction with Ca(OH)2 and increase the C-S-H, densifying the microstructure. There is however, an
optimal percentage which varies between 25 to 40% depending on the chemical composition of fly ash, beyond
which the fly ash does not enter into reaction and it behaves like aggregate. The addition of fly ash has been
demonstrated to decrease the autogenous shrinkage and potential for cracking under conditions of restrained
shrinkage. Overall, the reactivity of fly ash in the cementitious binary mix is known to be low, which results in
a slower rate of strength gain. Activation of fly using lime and sulfates has been explored before to overcome
the slow reactivity of fly ash.
While some studies have been performed on ternary blends and an overall improvement of specific
properties has been documented a detailed investigation into the hydration in the ternary system as a function of
the chemical composition of slag and fly ash is not available. The fly-ash-slag-cement ternary system is a
complicated system where the hydration would be driven by both hydraulic and pozzolanic reactions, each
contributing reaction products. Further, the extent of hydration of slag and fly ash would determine the
contribution of each to the final properties of concrete. Currently hydration and microstructure investigation in
ternary blended systems with fly ash and slag are not available in the literature. There is no information
available in the literature on the hydration in ternary blended systems.

References.
Effect of ternary cementitious systems Hariharan AR, Mohan Ganesh G, A R santhi
1. Khatri.R.P. and Sirivivatnonon.V, 1995, Effect of Different Supplementary
Cementitious Materials on Mechanical Properties of High Performance Concrete,
Cement and Concrete Research, 25(4), pp 209220.
2. Manjit Singh and Mirdul Garg , 2007, Durability of cementing binders based on fly
ash and other wastes, Construction and Building Materials , 21(2), pp 20122016.
3. Pipilikaki.P and M. Katsioti.M , 2009, Study of the hydration process of quaternary
blended cements and durability of the produced mortars and concretes,
Construction and Building Materials, 23(2), pp 22462250.
4. Ramezanianpour.A.A., and Malhotra.V.M, 1995, Effect of Curing on the
Compressive Strength, Resistance to ChlorideIon Penetration and Porosity of
Concretes Incorporating Slag, Fly Ash or Silica Fume Cement & Concrete
Composites, 6(2), pp 125133.
5. Thanongsak Nochaiya, Watcharapong and Arnon Chaipanich, 2009, Utilization of
Fly Ash with Silica Fume and Properties of Portland CementFly Ash Silica Fume
Concrete, Fuel, 24(10), pp 768774
6. Thomas.M.D.A., Shehata.M.H. and Shashiprakash.S.G., 1999, The Use of Fly
Ash in Concrete: Classification by Composition, Cement, Concrete, Aggregates,
21 (2).

Objectives
The objectives of the work presented here are:
1. To explore the feasibility of using fly ash and slag as a high volume cement replacement and to produce
a concrete mix of adequate strength suitable for structural application.
2. To study the process of hydration of cement, slag and fly ash in concrete at different stages.

Materials and Methods

The first stage involved the preparations of M 35 concrete mixes using different proportions of cement,
slag and fly ash as cement replacement by 70 % of its weight. Water/cementitious ratio were kept constant as
0.43. No chemical admixtures were used. The mixing and proportioning work started with the control mix
which consists of 100% ordinary Portland cement grade 53 conforming to IS-12269. The work was performed
in ACC central lab located at RC Puram near pathancheru (Hyderabad). The proportions of various mixes made
are as under.
Mix
Control, C
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7

Cement content%
100
30
30
30
30
30
30
30

Slag content%
0
35
70
10
60
20
50
0

Fly ash content%

0
35
0
60
10
50
20
70

In total eight mixes were cast. The mixing of materials like coarse aggregate, fine aggregate, cement fly
ash and slag was done in a horizontally rotated drum type mixer, also called as planetary mixer. The materials
were accurately weighed up to an accuracy of one gram using a digital balance. All the materials were put in the
planetary mixer in decreasing order of their sizes starting with coarse aggregate to cement in the following
order: 20mm coarse aggregate , 10mm coarse aggregate, crusher sand, river sand, fly ash, slag and cement. The
aggregate and cementitious materials were dry mixed for five minutes to ensure uniform and homogeneous
mixing of materials. Water was added slowly and mixing was continued for another five minutes. Slump of the
concrete was measured. The concrete was poured into the moulds of standard size of 15cm cubes for casting.
The concrete was placed in three layers in the casting moulds and each layer was tamped with at least 35 blows
at all possible locations, and compacted as per IS recommendations. The cube moulds were left for 24 hours at
room temperature. The concrete cubes were de-molded and put in to water bath for curing, labelling was done
to preserve the identity of each mix. There were in total 12 cubes casted for each mix and subsequently tested
for density and compressive strength for 1,7,14,28, 56 and 90 days as per specifications.
Next stage of this work was chemical analysis which involves thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) which
is used to determine change of weight with respect to change in temperature or rate of change of weight with
temperature. TGA is used to determine the available moisture content, evaporable water content, chemically
bound water content, calcium hydroxide at a particular stage and its decomposition into water and calcium.
TGA was conducted for dry powdered cement, fly ash and slag samples to ascertain the available moisture.

TGA was conducted for the mixes at1,7,14,28, 56 and 90 days of age.. The mixes to be tested for TGA do not
contain any coarse or fine aggregates and are only prepared using given proportions of cement slag and fly ash.
TGA may reveal the water available for hydration and pozzolanic reaction at the age of 1,7,14,28,56, and 90
days. If we know the amount of water available for hydration and calcium hydroxide at a particular stage, we
can compute the degree of hydration. The future work also involves XRD method which is used to describe the
crystallographic and atomic structure of the material. In our case it may be used to determine the amount of
crystalline and amorphous silica available in the mix at a particular age. It is important amorphous silica is
much more reactive as compared to crystalline. Finally we can switch over to determine the ICP analysis to
determine the oxide compositions of the three materials used, cement, slag and fly ash.
Materials used
Cement
Ordinary Portland cement was used conforming to grade 53 of IS 12269 with the specific gravity of 3.15.
Aggregate
The fine and coarse aggregates used were 20 mm, 10mm, natural river sand and crusher sand and gravel,
respectively. The fine and coarse aggregates were sieved into different size fractions that were then recombined
to a specific grading. The specific gravity of coarse aggregate is 2.61 and of fine aggregate is 2.69. The grading
and the physical properties are in conformity with the IS specifications Methods. The details of aggregates and
materials are attached in the tables below.

Table 1: Combined grading of fine aggregate

Combined
grading

River Sand

Manufa.sand.

Sieve size

% passing

% passing

% passing

(mm)
10 mm
4.75 mm

0%
0
0

100%
100
98

100%
100.0
98.0

Standard
Grading
limits
IS: 383 1970
100
90-100

2.36 mm

83.6

83.6

75-100

1.18 mm
600 mic
300 mic
150 mic

0
0
0
0

59.2
39.6
17.6
8

59.2
39.6
17.6
8.0

55-90
35-59
08--30
0-10

Note: As per IS 383 Table 4 for crushed sand stones the permissible limit on 150 micron sieve
is increased to 20 percent.
Table 2: Sieve analysis of coarse aggregate

Sieve size
(mm)
20 mm
10 mm
4.75 mm
2.36 mm

% passing
Fraction I - 20mm
Fraction II - 10mm
92.38
8.00
2.25
0

100
97
14.3
4

Table 3: Combined grading of coarse aggregate fractions

Coarse aggregate
fractions

Combined
grading

Sieve size

20mm

10mm

(mm)
40 mm
20 mm
10 mm
4.75 mm

60%
100
92.38
8.00
2.25

40%
100
100
97
14.3

100%
100
95.43
43.60
7.07

Table 2 of
Grading
limits
IS: 383
1970
100
95-100
25-55
0-10

Fly ash
Fly ash had a specific gravity of 2.28 and was supplied from Ramagundam thermal power station, the chemical
and the oxide compositions are proposed to be determined at a later stage.
The physical properties of the materials used in the concrete mixtures are given in the table below.

Table 5: Physical properties of the materials used in the concrete mixtures

Cement used

OPC 53 grade conforming to IS 12269

Specific gravity of cement

3.15

Specific gravity of fly ash

2.28

Average specific gravity of coarse aggregate

Average specific gravity of fine aggregate

2.61
2.69

Water absorption of coarse aggregate

0.50%

Free surface moisture of coarse and fine Nil

aggregate
Water absorption at artificial sand
4%

Concrete Mix Design

The concrete mixture design calculations for the M35 grade control mix is shown in the tables below.
Table 4: MIX CALCULATIONS

Volume of Concrete

1 m3

Volume of Cement
Volume of Fly ash

1206
00.00

Volume of Cement+fly ash

1206

Volume of Air

0.020

Volume of Water

0.1634

Volume of All in aggregate

a-(b+c+d+e) = 0.6959

Mass of Course aggregate

F*volume of coarse aggregate (60%)*specific

gravity of coarse aggregate* 1000 = 1090 kg
F*volume of fine aggregate (40%)*sp. Gravity
of fine aggregate* 1000 = 749 kg

Mass of Fine aggregate

Table 5: Final Mix proportion for M35 grade concrete in kg per cu.m
380

Cement (OPC 53 Grade )

Fly ash

Fine aggregate (river sand)

Fine aggregate (manufactured sand)

749

Coarse aggregate (20 mm)

654

Coarse aggregate (10mm)

436

Water
Admixture

163.4
0

Density

2382.4

Experimental Results
The compressive strengths as a function of age after casting are shown in the table below and shown
graphically in Figure 1.

Table 6: Compressive strength (MPa) as a function of age after casting

Age in Control M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
days
mix C
1
22.69
5.65
5.74
4.69
4.73
4.92
5.74
5.20
7

39.63

18.12

22.31

12.9

21.19

15.22

13.9

10.01

14

44.48

24.91

23.09

14.7

22.48

18.61

19.84

14.9

28

48.04

29.52

30.6

20.4

29.19

23.5

20.4

19.8

56

52.4

37.93

36.77

24.88

33.05

30.5

28.28

23.36

Compressive strength results N/mm2 so far

compressive strength (N/mm2)

60
50

40

C
M1

30

M2
M3

20

M4
10

M5
M6

0
0

14

21

28

M7

No of days

Compressive Strength in N/mm2

60
50
C
40

M1
M2

30

M3
20

M4
M5

10

M6
M7

0
0

10

20

30

40

Age in no. of days

Figure 1: Compressive strength gain as function of age after casting

50

60

Inferences

Mixes M2 and M4 show similar trends for rate of gain of strength as their slopes are nearly same to that
of control mix.
The rate of gain of strength of M1is slightly slower than control and of M2 and M4 but follows the same
trend.
All the above mentioned three mixes contain at least 35% slag. This reflects the hydraulic reactivity of
slag.
Mix M7 which contains 70% fly ash and no slag has lowest but steady rate of gain of strength.
High fly ash mixes like M3, M6 and M7 show low strength at early ages as expected because of lack of
calcium hydroxide in the initial stage.
High fly ash mixes achieve 1/4th of the strength of the control mix at the age of seven days but half of
the same at 28 days. This implies that in the initial stage the all the strength gain is due to the cement
only since each mix is comprising 30% cement
This validates the assumption that the fly ash at later ages shows better performance.
For high slag mixes, the initial strength is high, and after that, a steady state because of hydraulic action
ceases and then pozzolanic reaction starts.