• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.161-168
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• 2023

Converter slag is a by-product generated by refining the pig iron produced into molten steel in the blast furnace, occupying about 15 % of the weight of steel production. It has a high free-CaO content that can generate expansion cracks when used for concrete aggregate. This is the main reason to make it difficult to recycle. To solve this problem, government guideline requires that converter slag has to be aged in an open yard for 90 days. However, aging can not be perfectly performed because it entails time and cost. In this study, we tried to investigate the applicability of converter slag as a cementitious material rather than an aggregate by mixing converter slag with mortar formulations. According to the EDS results of the converter slag in the experiment, we found that screening in the aggregate phase was more effective than that in the powder phase. When the particles separated by a magnet in the aggregate state were pulverized and used for concrete up to a 15 % replacement ratio, various engineering characteristics, such as flow, length change, and compressive strength, showed engineering characteristics similar to those of the control mix.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.377-388
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• 2022

Laboratory-scale experiments were performed to identify the As removal mechanism of the residual slag generated after the mineral carbonation process. The residual slags were manufactured from the steelmaking slag (blast oxygen furnace slag: BOF) through direct and indirect carbonation process. RDBOF (residual BOF after the direct carbonation) and RIBOF (residual BOF after the indirect carbonation) showed different physicochemical-structural characteristics compared with raw BOF such as chemical-mineralogical properties, the pH level of leachate and forming micropores on the surface of the slag. In batch experiment, 0.1 g of residual slag was added to 10 mL of As-solution (initial concentration: 203.6 mg/L) titrated at various pH levels. The RDBOF showed 99.3% of As removal efficiency at initial pH 1, while it sharply decreased with the increase of initial pH. As the initial pH of solution decreased, the dissolution of carbonate minerals covering the surface was accelerated, increasing the exposed area of Fe-oxide and promoting the adsorption of As-oxyanions on the RDBOF surface. Whereas, the As removal efficiency of RIBOF increased with the increase of initial pH levels, and it reached up to 70% at initial pH 10. Considering the PZC (point of zero charge) of the RIBOF (pH 4.5), it was hardly expected that the electrical adsorption of As-oxyanion on surface of the RIBOF at initial pH of 4-10. Nevertheless it was observed that As-oxyanion was linked to the Fe-oxide on the RIBOF surface by the cation bridge effect of divalent cations such as Ca²⁺, Mn²⁺, and Fe²⁺. The surface of RIBOF became stronger negatively charged, the cation bridge effect was more strictly enforced, and more As can be fixed on the RIBOF surface. However, the Ca-products start to precipitate on the surface at pH 10-11 or higher and they even prevent the surface adsorption of As-oxyanion by Fe-oxide. The TCLP test was performed to evaluate the stability of As fixed on the surface of the residual slag after the batch experiment. Results supported that RDBOF and RIBOF firmly fixed As over the wide pH levels, by considering their As desorption rate of less than 2%. From the results of this study, it was proved that both residual slags can be used as an eco-friendly and low-cost As remover with high As removal efficiency and high stability and they also overcome the pH increase in solution, which is the disadvantage of existing steelmaking slag as an As remover.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2020

As of 2018, Steel slag was generated approximately 24.23 million tons. Howeve, except blast furnace slag, steel slag is a typical by-product which does not have a clearly defined purpose in recycling. Thus, countries around the world are putting great efforts into developing a purpose for the recycling of steel slag. The vast habitat foundation of marine life has been destroyed due to recent reckless marine development and environment pollution, resulting in intensification of the decline of marine resources, and a solution to this issue is imperative. In order to propose a method to recycle large amounts of by-product slag into a material that can serve as an alternative to natural aggregate, the engineering properties and applicability for each mixing factor of environment friendly porous concrete as a material for the composition of seawater purification were in this study. Regarding the nutrient elution properties, it was clear that the nutrients continuously flowed out up to an immersion time by 8 months in natural seawater; the nitrogenous fertilizer displayed excellent elution properties in this regard.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.146-154
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• 2015

Domestic railway industry has grown in numbers, scale of railway ndustrial and operation because was focused on an environmentally sustainable transportation. However, it is not enough to treat and prevent heavy metals which occur as the railway operation increases. The heavy metals occurred when the operating railway and it will be flow into water system with rainfall effluent during rainfall. will flow out along with the rainfall effluent when rainfall comes. In case of a railway bridge, In particular, heavy metals were flow into the water system without any treatment from railway bridges where located nearby rivers and lakes. So, rainfall effluent from railway facilities was occurred pollution of water system. For the prevent of heavy metal runoff during rainfall, the adsorptivity of material in railway roadbed is important.In this study, adsorptivity of gravel which is main gravel and blast-furnace slag were conducted adsorption test and deducted Freundlich's and Langmuir's isothermal adsorption equations. Safety as railway subbase course material was evaluated using modeling. As a result, absorption amount of slag, Cd and Cu, was shown higher than gravel and Pb along with Zn showed higher absorption amount of gravel. However, absorption amount of slag was shown higher than gravel used as railway subbase course material as time passes by. Absorption features had more suitable determination coefficient of heavy metals in warm absorption type such as Langnmuir compared to warm absorption type like Freundlich. To add, they showed less transformation by about 10% compared to gravel in safety evaluation through modeling. This is a railway subbase course material that prevents water outflow of heavy metal thus we can know slag is needed to be used.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.5 no.3 s.17
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• pp.101-107
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• 2005

This paper reports the contribution of Shrinkage reducing admixture(SRA) to the physical properties and drying shrinkage of concrete. Dosage of SRA is varied with. For the properties of fresh concrete, an increase in SRA dosage results in a decrease in fluidity and air content, while setting time is accelerated. For the properties of hardened concrete, the incorporation of mineral admixture leads to a decrease in compressive strength at early age, whereas after 28 days, the incorporation of fly ash(FA) and blast furnace slag(BS) has greater compressive strength than conventional concrete without admixture. The use of SRA results in a decrease in compressive strength. The incorporation of SRA with every $1\%$ increase causes the decrease of compressive strength by as much as $3\~6\%$. For drying shrinkage properties, the incorporation of FA and BS reduces drying shrinkage slightly. The use of SRA also decreases drying shrinkage. Every $1\%$ of increase in SRA dosage can reduce drying shrinkage by as much as $10\~15\%$

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.56-63
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• 2020

The usage of OPC-free alkali activated ground granulated blast furnace slag(GGBS) mortar has been widely studied on the previous years, due to its advantages on sustainability, durability and workability. This paper brings a new view, aiming to classify the best application in situ for each mortar, according to the type and activator content. By this practical implication, more efficiency is achieved on the construction site and consequently less waste of materials. In order to compare the different activators, the following experiments were performed: analysis of compressive strength at 28 days, setting time measured by needles penetration resistance, analysis of total pore volume performed by MIP and permeability assessment by RCPT test. In general, activated GGBS had acceptable performance in all cases compared to OPC, and remarkable improved durability. Following the experimental results, it was confirmed that each activator and different concentrations impose distinct outcome performance to the mortar which allows the classification. It was observed that the activator Ca(OH)2 is the most versatile among the others, even though it has limited compressive strength, being suitable for laying mortar, coating/plaster, adhesive and grouting mortar. Samples activated with NaOH, in turn, presented in general the most similar results compared to OPC.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.651-658
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• 2017

High-performance concrete, besides aggregate, cement, and water, incorporates supplementary cementitious materials, such as fly ash and blast furnace slag, and chemical admixture, such as superplasticizer. Hence, it is a highly complex material and modeling its behavior represents a difficult task. This paper presents an evolutionary system for the prediction of high performance concrete strength. The proposed framework blends a recently developed version of genetic programming with a local search method. The resulting system enables us to build a model that produces an accurate estimation of the considered parameter. Experimental results show the suitability of the proposed system for the prediction of concrete strength. The proposed method produces a lower error with respect to the state-of-the art technique. The paper provides two contributions: from the point of view of the high performance concrete strength prediction, a system able to outperform existing state-of-the-art techniques is defined; from the machine learning perspective, this case study shows that including a local searcher in the geometric semantic genetic programming system can speed up the convergence of the search process.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.717-724
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• 2017

In this paper, four formulas are proposed via gene expression programming (GEP)-based models and regression analysis (RA) to predict the flexural strength ($f_s$) values of mortars containing different mineral admixtures that are ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS), silica fume (SF) and fly ash (FA) at different ages. Three formulas obtained from the GEP-I, GEP-II and GEP-III models are constituted to predict the $f_s$ values from the age of specimen, water-binder ratio and compressive strength. Besides, one formula obtained from the RA is constituted to predict the $f_s$ values from the compressive strength. To achieve these formulas in the GEP and RA models, 972 data of the experimental studies presented with mortar mixtures were gathered from the literatures. 734 data of the experimental studies are divided without pre-planned for these formulas achieved from the training and testing sets of GEP and RA models. Beside, these formulas are validated with 238 data of experimental studies un-employed in training and testing sets. The $f_s$ results obtained from the training, testing and validation sets of these formulas are compared with the results obtained from the experimental studies and the formulas given in the literature for concrete. These comparisons show that the results of the formulas obtained from the GEP and RA models appear to well compatible with the experimental results and find to be very credible according to the results of other formulas.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.18 no.2E
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• pp.97-102
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• 2006

In this study, the effect of supplementary materials(GGBS, PFA, SF) on sulfuric acid corrosion resistance was assessed by measuring the compressive strength, corroded depth and weight change at 7, 28, 56, 91, 180 and 250 days of immersion in sulfuric acid solution with the pH of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Then, it was found that an increase in the duration of immersion and a decrease in the pH, as expected, resulted in a more severe corrosion irrespective of binders: increased corroded depth and weight change, and lowered the compressive strength. 60% GGBS mortar specimen was the most resistant to acid corrosion in terms of the corroded depth, weight change and compressive strength, due to the latent hydraulic characteristics and lower portion of calcium hydroxide. The order of resistance to acid was 60% GGBS>20% PFA>10% SF>OPC. In a microscopic examination, it was found that acid corrosion of cement matrix produced gypsum, as a result of decomposition of hydration products, which may loose the structure of cement matrix, thereby leading to a remarkable decrease of concrete properties.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.527-537
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• 2016

This study evaluated the mechanical characteristics and durability of porous concrete produced with a cementless binder based on ground granulated blast furnace slag (BFS), fly ash (FA) and flue gas desulfurization gypsum (CP). As a result, the void ratio was increased slightly from the target void ratio, by 1.12-1.42 %. Through evaluating the compressive strength, it was found that the compressive strength of porous concrete with cementless binder decreased in comparison to the compressive strength of porous concrete with ordinary Portland cement (OPC), but the difference was insignificant, at 0.6-1.4 MPa. Through the freeze-thawing test to evaluate the durability, it was found that the relative dynamic elastic modulus of porous concrete with cementless binder decreased to 60 % or less at 80 cycles. The result of the chemical resistance test showed that the mass reduction rate was 12.3 % at 5 % HCl solution, and 12.7 % at 12.3 and 5 % $H_2SO_4$ solutions.