Research on Cement Concrete by Partial Replacement of Coarse Aggregates with Steel Slag Aggregates and Cement with Rice Husk Ash

Concrete is the third largest material consumed by human beings after food and water as per WHO (World Health Organization). Concrete plays a vital role in the design and construction of the nation’s infrastructure. Almost three quarters of the volume of concrete is composed of aggregates. These are obtained from natural rocks and river beds, thus degrading them slowly. This issue of environmental degradation, and need for aggregates demands for the usage of any other alternative source. Over 5% of global CO2emissions can be attributed to Portland cement production. Demand for cement continues to grow. The emissions caused by annual increases in production exceed gains to reduce emissions through manufacturing efficiencies and cleaner fuels. And also increase in the cost of conventional building materials and to provide a sustainable growth; the construction field has prompted the designers and developers to look for alternative materials for the possible use in civil engineering constructions. For this objective, the use of industrial waste products and agricultural by products are very constructive. These industrial wastes and agricultural by product such as Fly Ash, Rice Husk Ash, Silica Fume, and Slag etc can be used as cementing materials because of their pozzolanic behavior, which otherwise require large tracts of lands for dumping. Large amounts of wastes obtained as by products from many of the industries can be the main sources of such alternate materials. The world rice harvest is estimated at 588 million tons per year and India is second largest producer of rice in the world with annual production of 132 million tons per year. In the present investigation, a feasibility study is made to use Rice Husk Ash as an admixture to already replaced Cement with fly ash (Ordinary Portland Cement) in Concrete, and an attempt has been made to investigate the strength parameters of concrete. Steel slag is a by product of steel making processes of steel industry. It’s also one of the biggest industrial waste which is being produced worldwide in a huge quantity during the steel-making operations which utilize Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF). Steel slag can be used in the construction industry as aggregates in concrete by replacing natural aggregates. In this research coarse aggregate were partially replaced with steel slag with different replacement percentage in concrete i.e. 0%, 15%, 30%, 35%, 40% and 45% and cement was partially replaced with rice husk ash with different replacement percentages i.e. 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25%. In order to required workability and high strength concrete super plasticizers are used. This paper gives the behavior of concrete under flexure, tension and compression under natural loads. In this investigation I considered steel slag aggregates and rice husk ash separately and collectively.