The Production of Self-Compacting Concrete with Normal Cement Content

Abstract

The main object of this work is to evaluate the possibility for using reasonable cementcontent and fine materials to reduce costs of expensive chemical admixtures needed for themanufacturing of self-compacting concrete (SCC). In this work, three values of cement contentare used (rich, medium and lean mixes) with cement content of 400, 300 and 250 kg/m3respectively . Two maximum aggregate sizes of (10 and 20mm) for each cement content areused. The powder content material is (cementations + filler ) is maintained constant (500kg/m3)while the W/cm ratio ranges from 0.43 to 0.68. 10% Reactive Metakaolin Class N is used as apartial replacement by weight of cement. On the other hand, limestone dust was used as apartial replacement by weight of the powder content Tests were carried out on all mixes toobtain the properties of fresh concrete in terms of viscosity and stability. The results showed thatincreasing the percentage of filler (limestone dust) from 20% in rich mixes to50% in lean mixesof the total weight of the powder content reduces the amount of cement in SCC withoutsignificant effect on the fresh properties of the SCC mixes. This conclusion is significant fromthe economical point of view. The mechanical properties of hardened SCC mixes are alsoassessed. (compressive strength, modulus of elasticity ). The results obtained from this workshow that it is possible to produce SCC with different levels of cement content (250 to400kg/m3)using local available materials which satisfy the requirements of this type of concrete .The testdata collected indicate that these materials can be used in the manufacturing of economical SCC.