Performance of self-compacting concrete made with hydraulic lime as filler

Abstract

Concrete is a very popular artificial material on earth and it is one of the most used construction material in building technology. Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) is a highly workable concrete designed such that it is able to be placed in any formwork without external compaction or vibration. It consolidates and fills voids by the help of its self-weight even in the presence of very dense reinforcement. This paper presents the design of a self-consolidating concrete mix with lime as filler which can be used in day to day normal concrete applications. Twenty-six mixes were prepared with different packing factors for aggregates, cement and lime contents and superplasticizer dosage to get optimum proportions for SCC. Traditional Vibrated Concrete (TVC) mixes of normal strength were also designed. Workability tests were carried out on both concrete types which included testing the flow characteristics of SCC and the slump for TVC. Compressive and tensile strength tests were carried out on cubes and cylinders made from both mixes. Results from the experiment showed that the amount of cement normally required to make the SCC was replaced by lime by about 30% to obtain a normal strength of about 30 MPa. It was also observed that the tensile strength of SCC was slightly higher than that of TVC.