Effects of Water- Cement Ratio on Workability of Bagasse Ash Concrete

Abstract

Among several variables which influence the workability of fresh concrete is water/cement ratio (w/c), hence the need to investigate the latter’s effect on concrete blended with BA. Traditionally, w/c ratio probably is the most important parameter within cement materials technology such as concrete and mortar. An extensive experimentation was performed to study the workability of wet concrete in which pozzolanic portland cement (PPC) was partially replaced with fine (< 0.075mm) BA. Samples of the latter were purposely selected from the Nzoia Sugar Company (NSC) dump sites in western Kenya. The w/c ratio was varied from 0.40 to 0.60 for different sets of BA replacement of cement levels ranging from 0 to 30%. The study showed that the optimum BA replacement of PPC is 10% for all w/c ratios that gives the highest workability. In the study conclusion, it was further stated that 0.55 was the optimum w/c.