The use of a non-standard high calcium fly ash in concrete and its response to accelerated curing

Abstract

An experimental work was carried out to investigate the use of a non-standard high calcium fly ash in concrete. The response of the same fly ash to the accelerated curing was also explored. With three different cementitious material contents, a total of 48 concretes were produced. The water/ cement ratios were varied from 0.40 to 0.87. Compressive strengths of the moist cured cube specimens cast from the concrete mixtures made with 0%, 15%, 30% and 45% replacement of normal Portland cement with fly ash were measured at 28 days and 3 months. Accelerated compressive strengths were also measured using warmwater method and boiling-water method in accordance with the relevant ASTM and Turkish Standards. Despite the fact that the fly ash used was a non-standard, the laboratory test results showed that it could be utilized in concrete production at a replacement level between 15% and 30% by weight basis because fly ash concrete developed comparable or higher compressive strength than that of corresponding normal Portland cement concrete. The laboratory test results also indicated that the accelerated curing could be used to predict the compressive strength of fly ash concrete with 85% correlation coefficient. The amount of fly ash was found to be immaterial in the strength prediction. The relation between warm-water method and boiling-water method was of linear form with 93% correlation coefficient.