Flexural Behavior of Geopolymer Ferro Cement Panels with the Incorporation of Crumb Rubber and Nano Fly Ash

Abstract

This paper presents the application of geopolymer mortar incorporating into the Ferro cement panel with enhanced properties by incorporating crumb rubber and Nano fly ash. The cement free mortar is prepared by using industrial wastes such as fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) called as geopolymer mortar which helps to reduce the level of CO 2 emission. Also, the recycled tyre crumb rubber is utilized as a sustainable construction material with partial substitution for sand. It helps to reduce land fill problems and air pollution. Crumb rubber having the capacity of absorbing more energy from static and other loads. In this research, geopolymer mortar is made by using the basic constituents such as fly ash, GGBFS, alkaline liquid made of NaOH and Na2SiO3, Nano fly ash. The effort has been made to enhance the strength of fly ash based geopolymer mortar by incorporation of GGBFS. The molarity of alkaline solution, solution to binder ratio and Na2SiO3 to NaOH ratio is fixed as 12, 0.4 and 1.5 throughout the process. The 5% crumb rubber is used instead of sand for enhancing the strength and for better ductility without affecting the strength. The panel was heat cured under hot air oven at 80ᵒ C for 48 hours. The mechanical properties such as compressive and tensile strength and water absorption are investigated. The Ferro cement panel is made of high strength geopolymer mortar and expanded metal mesh for enhancing the ductility and energy absorption capacity. The 2 layers of expanded metal mesh and 2 layers of chicken mesh are used. The investigation involves finding the initial crack load, ultimate failure load and residual flexural strength ratio. The Nano fly ash helps in increasing the strength and durability of the element by its pore filling capability. Keywords-geopolymer mortar, fly ash, GGBFS, Impact, Nano fly ash. I. INTRODUCTION Geopolymer is a green innovative eco-friendly material for obtaining sustainable development with enhanced strength properties. This material not emits high amount o f carbon dioxide gas like cement manufacturing process [7]. It has too low level of loss on ignition values. The OPC manufacture also leads to the emission of nitrogen and sulphur oxide gases which creates global warming and acid rain problems. The cement manufacture alone creates 65% of global warming and it emits 1.35 billion tons of carbon dioxide gas into the environment. The geopolymer requires 1.6GJ energy with 80% reduction in CO2 emission whereas the cement manufacture needs 4GJ energy [1] & [3]. The geopolymerization process involves number of chains of inorganic molecule between polymer materials. The benefits of the geopolymer material are higher compressive strength, earlier strength development, acid resistance, fire resistance, low creep and shrinkage, crack reduction and lower porosity [6] & [9]. For the manufacturing of geopolymer