This paper uses polyoxyethylene alkyether sulphate (PAS) to form foam via pre-foaming method, which is then incorporated into geopolymer based on fly ash and ladle furnace slag. In the literature, only PAS-geopolymer foams made with single precursor were studied. Therefore, the performance of fly ash-slag blended geopolymer with and without PAS foam was investigated at 29–1000 °C. Unfoamed geopolymer (G-0) was prepared by a combination of sodium alkali, fly ash and slag. The PAS foam-to-paste ratio was set at 1.0 and 2.0 to prepare geopolymer foam (G-1 and G-2). Foamed geopolymer showed decreased compressive strength (25.1–32.0 MPa for G-1 and 21.5–36.2 MPa for G-2) compared to G-0 (36.9–43.1 MPa) at 29–1000 °C. Nevertheless, when compared to unheated samples, heated G-0 lost compressive strength by 8.7% up to 1000 °C, while the foamed geopolymer gained compressive strength by 68.5% up to 1000 °C. The thermal stability of foamed geopolymer was greatly improved due to the increased porosity, lower thermal conductivity, and incompact microstructure, which helped to reduce pressure during moisture evaporation and resulted in lessened deterioration.
For more than 35 years of operation and utilization of the neutron source from the PUSPATI TRIGA Reactor (RTP), the reactor has faced ageing challenged and degradation in several structures, systems and components (SSCs). Several modifications have been made since 2010 to ensure safe operation and sustainability, however, due to recent intensively request from the user to use the neutron source, it has shown degradation behaviour in the reactor SSCs including the biological shielding of the RTP. In this paper, it described the assessment of the safety barriers integrity specifically at the biological shielding concrete structure of the RTP. In-service inspection and X-Ray diffraction methodology were used to investigate and analyses the condition. The investigation results show no irregularity except slightly degradation occurrences has been noticed and aware.
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