J. Shanghai Jiaotong Univ. (Sci.), 2008, 13(2): 177180 DOI: 10.

1007/s12204-008-0177-6

Granular Eect of Fly Ash Repairs Damage of Recycled Coarse Aggregate

LI Jiu-su1,2 (), XIAO Han-ning1 (), GONG Jian-qing1 ()

(1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China; 2. Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha 410076, China)

Abstract: Repairing eect of y ash (FA) on damage of recycled coarse aggregate was evaluated by characteristics of pores and cracks in the vicinity of interfacial transition zone (ITZ). The interfacial structure between the virgin aggregate and the attached old mortar was investigated and compared with ITZ of recycled aggregate concrete in the presence of FA or ultra-ne FA(UFA) by means of scanning electron microscope (SEM). Diameter and plumpness frequency distribution of pores as well as width of the old ITZ, length of contacting points and cracks density were analyzed. The SEM results reveal that the diameter of pores is decreases signicantly but pores plumpness increases. A decreased ITZ width and cracks density as well as an increased bonding zone length can also been observed, which indicates that FA or UFA repairs damage of recycled coarse aggregate due to its granular eect. Key words: pores structure; characteristics of interfaciial transition zone; y ash; repairing eect CLC number: TU 528 Document code: A

Introduction
Recycling of concrete has become an attractive issue for saving landll cost, environmental preservation and satisfying the needs of sustainable development[1,2] . Recycled aggregate (RA) refers to particles obtained after operations such as crushing, sieving and grading of waste concrete. According to maximum size, the RA can be classied as recycled coarse aggregate and recycled ne aggregate. Recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) usually denotes concrete made partially or completely with RA. Due to the extremely high water absorption ratio of the recycled ne aggregate, it is still dicult to replace natural sand with recycled ne aggregate for production of RAC. Therefore, RA is generally referred to recycled coarse aggregate. Recently, more and more attention has been paid to reutilization of recycled coarse aggregate[3,4]. Two prominent problems concerning the reuse of RA, however, remain to be unsolved which limit its wide application. First, the old hydrated mortars attached to the virgin particles result in the high water absorption ratio of RA, which weakens the workability of fresh recycled concrete signicantly. When the same amount of water is added to concrete mixes, lack of water for hydration consequently leads to poor compressive strength and durability of RAC. Second, in the process of disintegration and crushing of waste concrete, RA intends to crack,
Received date: 2006-09-24 Foundation item: The Scientic Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department (No. 06C113) E-mail: lijiusu@126.com

which, in turns, damages the compressive strength and durability of RAC. To deal with the two problems mentioned above, some researchers succeeded in strengthening RA by striking and rubbing between particles[5] or by pre-soaking RA with silica fume solution for several hours prior to production of RAC[6] . But the inconveniences and high cost restrain wide application of these pretreatment methods. Instead of pre-treating RA, addition of FA helps to enhance compressive strength and durability of RAC based upon experimental results[7,8] . Few studies the damage of RA and inuence of FA on microstructure of RAC. We aims to investigate the modication of pores structure and cracks characteristics in the vicinity of interfacial transition zone between the attached old mortar and the original aggregate (old ITZ) when blending FA or UFA into recycled concrete mixes.

1 Evaluation Method of Repairing Eect

Although a number of studies have been performed on strengthening RA or RAC, they were almost based on improvement of macro-performance of RA or RAC, such as water absorption, crushing value, compressive strength and exural strength. Little attention, has been devoted to the betterment of the old ITZ owning to the diculties in gaining sight into the ITZ structure. Unlike natural aggregate, RA is characterized both by higher porosity and a number of micro-cracks resulting from the crushing process. Naturally, the damage

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J. Shanghai Jiaotong Univ. (Sci.), 2008, 13(2): 177180

of RA can then be evaluated by characteristics of pores and cracks. 1.1 Pores Evaluation Characteristics of pores were evaluated by pores structure in this research. Suppose FA can really repair the damage of RA, the decrease of diameter of pores near the old ITZ should be observed. Plumpness can be dened as the ratio of the short side divided by the long side (b/l) of the measured unit. Ranging from 0 to 1, lower plumpness means that the pore shape resembles a rectangle; whereas higher plumpness notes that the shape is more like a round. Given that FA had a repairing function, higher plumpness can then be obtained due to addition of FA in concrete mixes. 1.2 ITZ Evaluation Like ordinary concrete, hardened RAC consists of three phases: cement paste, RA including the old ITZ and the new interfacial transition zone between RA and the new mortar matrix (new ITZ)[9,10] . The weak old ITZ represents the damage of RA, which is characterized by microcracks and other microdefects. To research the repairing eect of FA and UFA on RA, it is imperative to investigate modication of the old ITZ structure. A denser, narrower, less porous and less cracking old ITZ denotes an obvious repairing eect of FA or UFA. Width of old ITZ, length of bonding zone between RA and new cement mortar, and statistical distribution of cracks near old ITZ were investigated.

2.3 Results and Discussion 2.3.1 Grain Size Distribution The results of size distribution of PO, FA and UFA are listed in Table 1. According to the grain size distribution as shown in Table 1, the particles smaller than 4 m of PO, FA and UFA can be calculated, which account for 32.75%, 34.42% and 80.73%, respectively.
Table 1
Size/m PO 30 15 8 4 2 1 0.5 0.1 0.30 13.07 29.86 24.02 12.75 13.69 3.57 2.74

Granular distribution of PO, FA and UFA

Percent ner than/% FA 0 8.56 41.16 15.86 20.25 8.89 2.90 2.38 UFA 0 0 3.25 16.02 18.75 35.61 17.81 8.56

2 Experimental Program
2.1 Raw Materials Binders involved in this study include an ordinary grade 42.5 Portland cement (PO), ordinary FA and UFA. RA with a water absorption ratio of 4.3% was prepared by crushing with a jaw crusher in laboratory. Natural river sand (S) with a neness modulus of 2.46 was used. And a high range water reducer (HRWR) was added to improve workability of RAC. 2.2 Methods Grain distribution of PO, FA and UFA was tested by LS-601 laser particle size analyzer. The interfacial zone between virgin aggregate and attached old mortar of RA was investigated by SEM, which focused on the pores and cracks near the old ITZ. Specimens with addition of FA (RA01) or UFA (RA02) were prepared with a proportion of mPO : mFA (or mUFA ) : mS : mRA = 375 kg:125 kg:543 kg:1053 kg. And water-binder ratio was kept as constant as 0.37. For comparison, RC03 was also prepared without FA (or UFA). After 28 d curing (t = (20 2)C, 95%), the compressive strength of the specimens was tested. The SEM test was then carried out and structure of pores and cracks of SEM graphs were analyzed using Microdraw software.

2.3.2 Repairing Eect of FA (UFA) on Damaged RA Figure 1 shows the SEM graphs of RA (RA00), ITZ of RAC with addition of FA (RA01), UFA (RA02), and without addition of FA (RA03). Five SEM graphs were taken randomly on the width of 20 m near the old interfacial transition zone, Microdraw software was utilized to measure diameter, long side length, short side length of pores, width of old ITZ and length of bonding zone. Tables 24 summarize the statistical results.
Table 2
Sample 02 RA00 RA01 RA02 RA03 17 100 67 36 25 33 0 33 45 510 50 0 0 9 1020 0 0 0 0

Pores distribution of near ITZ

Average diameter of pores/%

As shown in Table 2, FA or UFA inuences structure of pores of old ITZ signicantly. The pores of RA have a bigger average size. Pores with an average diameter of 510 m occupy around 50%. With the addition of FA or UFA, the pores size of RA01 and RA02 reduces substantially. PO can modify the pores structure of the old ITZ to some extent. A decrease of pores diameter near the old ITZ can be observed from Table 2. Table 3 shows the variation of plumpness of pores before and after addition of FA, UFA or PO. The plumpness of pores intends to increase, which indicates that the shape of pores is more like a round instead of a rectangle. In contrast to PO, plumpness increases substantially after addition of FA or UFA. Thus the addition of FA or UFA helps to ll up the RA pores.

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Fig. 1 Table 3 Pores plumpness distribution within 20 m width of ITZ

Plumpness of pores/% Sample 0.20.4 RA00 RA01 RA02 RA03 17 0 0 0 0.40.6 17 25 0 30 0.60.8 51 40 50 42

Interfacial structure

0.81.0 15 35 50 28

Table 4
Sample

ITZ condition of recycled concrete

Characteristics of ITZ of RAC Average width /m Bonding zone length/% 12 52 68 22 Cracks density 2.9 0 0 4.2

RA00 RA01 RA02 RA03

4.4 2.1 1.2 3.6

that FA and UFA repair the damage of RA. First, the average width of the inferior old ITZ decreases from 4.4 to 2.1 m or 1.2 m when FA or UFA is added to the mixture, respectively. Second, owning to the addition of FA or UFA, increasing contacting points form a bonding zone which are composed primarily of calcium silicate hydrates (C-S-H). A number of contacting points lead to a denser ITZ. The bonding zone length, hence, represents the degree of repairing eect of the pozzolan replacements on the damaged RA. FA can strengthen about 52% old ITZ whereas UFA can strengthen nearly 70% old ITZ, while PO can only intensify 22% old ITZ (Table 4). Third, cracks of RA can also be lled up by the new hydrates due to the pozzolanic reactivity of FA and UFA. To summarize, FA and UFA can repair the damage of RA by lling up the pores and cracks. The better repairing eect of UFA can be attributable to its ner particle size. 2.3.3 Compressive Strength After 28 d curing, the compressive strength of specimens was tested. The compressive strength of specimens with addition of FA and UFA was 50.6 and 57.2 MPa, respectively whereas the compressive strength of RA03 was 45.6 MPa. From results of micro-hardness test and tracing the cracking pattern of RAC, Otsuki et al[11] concluded that the failure of RAC is primarily associated with the weak old ITZ when a relatively lower water-binder ratio is presented. The enhancement of the compressive strength of RA01 and RA02 as compared to RA03 is due to the improvement of the old

*Cracks density is calculated by number of cracks within 100 m length of ITZ

As shown in Table 4, the average width of interfacial zone between natural particle and the attached old mortar of RA is approximately 4.4 m. Particles larger than 4.4 m can hardly ll up and compact the old ITZ. The particles smaller than 4 m of PO, FA, and UFA account for 32.75%, 34.42% and 80.73%, respectively. UFA can therefore compacts the old ITZ best as compared to PO and FA. The results in Table 4 support

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J. Shanghai Jiaotong Univ. (Sci.), 2008, 13(2): 177180 [3] Tam V W, Gao X F, Tam C M. Quality improvement of recycled aggregate concrete [J]. Key Engineering Materials, 2006, 302303: 308313. [4] Tu T Y, Cheng Y Y, Hwang C L. Properties of HPC with recycled aggregates [J]. Cement and Concrete Research, 2006, 36(5): 943950. [5] Li Q Y, Li Y X, Zhu C J. Inuence of a particle shape correcting technique in properties of recycled coarse aggregate [J]. Material Science and Technology, 2005, 13(6): 579581 (in Chinese). [6] Katz A. Treatments for the improvement of recycled aggregate [J]. Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 2004, 16(6): 597603. [7] Hansen T C. Recycled concrete aggregate and y ash produce concrete without portland cement [J]. Cement and Concrete Research, 1990, 20(3): 355356. [8] Mandal S, Chakarborty S, Gupta A. Some studies on durability of recycled aggregate concrete [J]. Indian Concrete Journal, 2002, 76(6): 385388. [9] Poon C S, Shui Z H, Lam L. Eect of microstructure of ITZ on compressive strength of concrete prepared with recycled aggregates [J]. Construction and Building Materials, 2004, 18(6): 461468. [10] Tam V W, Gao X F, Tam C M. Microstructural analysis of recycled aggregate concrete produced from twostage mixing approach [J]. Cement and Concrete Research, 2005, 35(6): 11951203. [11] Otsuki N, Miyazato S I, Yodsudjai W. Inuence of recycled aggregate on interfacial transition zone, strength, chloride penetration and carbonation of concrete [J]. Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 2003, 15(5): 443451.

ITZ structure. The compressive strength results verify that UFA repairs RA better.

3 Conclusion
The average width of the old ITZ of RA is approximately 4 m. The particles smaller than 4 m in FA and UFA account for 34.42% and 80.73% respectively, which can ll up and compact pores and cracks successfully. The damage of RA can be repaired by addition of FA or UFA. The repairing eect can be evaluated by modication of pores structure, increase of bonding zone length as well as diminish of ITZ width and decline of cracks density. UFA has a better repairing eect when compared to FA due primarily to the ner granular distribution. The analysis of pores structure and cracks characteristics was based on combination of Microdraw software and articial statistical calculation. An estimation and modication trend of the old ITZ structure has been identied. The results may contribute to the development of statistical calculation method for measuring pores and cracks from SEM graphs.

References
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