Microstructure Characteristic and Compressive Strength of Self Compacting Concrete Using Sea Water as Mixing Water

Abstract

Indonesia is an archipelagic country which makes many areas doesn't have qualified water as drinking water. As concrete construction building in the region has possibly minimum or non-existent amount of fresh water, the using of sea water in mixing concrete and curing concrete is unavoidable. The demand of water is getting more and more increasing in both the improvement of infrastructure development and the life need. In the concrete industry, several billion tons of water is used as water mixing, curing and cleaning every year. Therefore the use of seawater is not allowed. In fact, we know that seawater is one of the abundant natural resources. Due to this problem, the research on the use of seawater is very important owing to the saving of freshwater is seriously needed. This study uses seawater by combining effective and efficient concrete technology of Self Compacting Concrete (SCC). This paper is a part of ongoing research studying about microstructure characteristics and the strength of SCC using seawater. It discusses about the compressive strength, absorption and porosity as microstructure characteristics of SCC until the age of 28 days. The results are: (1) the seawater used as mixing water did not affect the development of the compressive strength of concrete, (2) the difference compressive strength of SCC-SS with SCC-FF at an early age is very high occurred at ages 1 and 3 days and (3). The higher the compressive strength value is, the smaller the absorption and porosity is in concrete.

A review of recent advances in the science and technology of seawater-mixed concrete

“…These studies demonstrate the feasibility of producing seawater-mixed SCC which satisfies the existing guidelines for SCC, although the seawater slightly decreases the workability of fresh SCC, similar to the case for conventional concrete [61]. The compressive and tensile strengths of seawater-mixed SCC were found to be generally higher than those of the corresponding freshwater-mixed SCC even at later ages, especially when a large amount of fly ash is used in the mixture [61,62,65]. As suggested by the other studies, this enhancement could be due to the synergistic effects between seawater and SCMs.…”

“…As suggested by the other studies, this enhancement could be due to the synergistic effects between seawater and SCMs. Microstructural investigations of seawater-mixed SCC have also been performed [62][63][64] and effects of curing methods on strength development in SCC have been explored [61]. Raidyarto et al (2020) demonstrated the feasibility of producing seawater SCC with steel fibers; although corrosion was not explored in this study [66].…”

“…Researchers in Indonesia [60][61][62][63][64] conducted extensive studies on seawater-mixed SCC using Portland cement (OPC), fly ash, and other materials. Zhou et al [65] developed highvolume fly ash-self compacting concrete with seawater, using large amounts (> 50%) of fly ash replacing cement.…”