Investigating the use of Calcined Quartzite Dust as a Partial Replacement of Cement in Concrete

Abstract

Concrete is the most used man-made material in the world and is the fundamental physical medium for most of the world's architecture and construction. The character of concrete is largely the product of the rigid molds that have shaped it since its invention in antiquity. In recent years, researchers have been focusing on developing more sustainable cementitious systems in order to curb the negative environmental impacts associated with ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Several attempts have been made to develop sustainable binders through the use of pozzolans such as slag, fly ash (FA), palm oil fuel ash (POFA), metakaolin (MK), silica fume (SF), rice husk ash (RHA) etc. with a relatively larger amount of replacement of OPC. It is quite beneficial to replace some of the cement with those pozzolans in terms of cost, energy efficiency, environmental and ecological benefits, and durability features. The purpose of this study was to ascertain how adding calcined quartzite dust (CQD) as a binder would affect the compressive and flexural properties of conventional concrete in a partial substitution of cement. The research was conducted in three phases. The physical and chemical characteristics of CQD were analyzed. Then the performance of concrete incorporating the different percentage replacement of 10%, 15%, 20% 25% and 30% of cement with CQD was determined. The workability, water absorption, compressive strength and flexural strength was determined. Finally, the appropriate working mix design for the concrete was determined and a mix design with the 10% replacement of cement with CQD as the optimum. The findings of this research project concluded that CQD can be used as an effective partial replacement of cement at 10% percentage replacement of cement with CQD.