• Advances in materials Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2015

Concrete suffers strength loss when subjected to elevated temperatures during an accidental event such as fire. The loss in strength of concrete is mainly attributed to decomposition of C-S-H gel and release of chemically bound water, which begins when the temperature exceeds $500^{\circ}C$. But it is unclear about how much strength loss occurs in different stages of heating, retention and cooling regimes. This work is carried out to separate the total strength loss into losses during different stages of heating, retention and cooling. Tests were carried out on both Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) based concrete and Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS) blended concrete for $200^{\circ}C$, $400^{\circ}C$, $600^{\circ}C$ and $800^{\circ}C$ with a retention period of 1 hour for each of these temperature levels. Furnace cooling was adopted throughout the experiment. This study reports strength loss contribution during heating, retention and cooling regimes for both OPC based and GGBFS based concretes.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.223-236
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• 2015

Concrete is the most widely used material of construction. Concrete gained the popularity as a construction material due to the easy availability of its component materials, the easy formability, strength and rigidity upon setting and curing.In construction industry, strength is the primary criterion in selecting a concrete for a particular application. Now a days, the substantial amount of waste materials, containing the properties of the Pozzolana, is being generated from the major industries; and disposal of such industrial wastes generated in abundance is also a serious problem from the environmental and pollution point of view. On this backdrop, efforts are made by the researchers for exploring the possible utilization of such waste materials in making the sustainable construction material. The present paper reports the experimental investigations to study the strength characterization of concrete made from the pozzolanic waste materials. For this purpose, the Pozzolanic materials such as fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag were used as a cement replacing materials in conjunction with ordinary Portland cement. Equal amount of these materials were used in eight trial mixes with varying amount of cement. The water cement ratio was also varied. The chemical admixture was also added to improve the workability of concrete. The compressive strengths for 7, 28, 40 and 90 days' were evaluated whereas the flexural and tensile strengths corresponding to 7, 28 and 40 days were evaluated. The study corroborates that the pozzolanic materials used in the present investigation along with the cement can render the sustainable concrete.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.219-229
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• 2021

In recent years, geopolymer cements, have gained significant attention as an environmental-friendly type of cement. In this experimental research, effects of different alkaline activator solutions and variations of associated parameters, including time of addition, concentration, and weight ratio, on the mechanical strengths of Granulated Ground Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS)-based Geopolymer Concrete (GPC) were investigated. Investigation of the effects of simultaneous usage of KOH and NaOH solutions on the tensile and flexural strengths of GGBFS-based GPC, and the influence of NaOH solution addition time delay on the mechanical strengths is among the novel aspects investigated in this research. four series of mix designs and corresponding specimen testing is conducted to study different parameters of the active alkali solutions on GPC mechanical strengths. The results showed that addition of NaOH to the mix after 3 min of mixing KOH and Na2SiO3 with dry components (1/3 of the total mixing duration) resulted in the highest compressive, tensile and flexural strengths amongst other cases. Moreover, increasing the KOH concentration up to 12 M resulted in the highest compressive strength, while weight ratio of 1.5 for Na2SiO3/KOH was the optimum value to achieve highest compressive strengths.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.601-613
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• 2023

Low liquid limit silt, widely distributed in the middle and down reaches of Yellow River, has the disadvantages of poor grading, less clay content and poor colloidal activity. It is very easy to cause vehicle jumping at the bridge-embankment transition section when the low liquid limit silt used as the backfill at the abutment back. In this paper, a series of laboratory tests were carried out to study the physical and mechanical properties of the low liquid limit silt used as back filling. Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) was excited by active MgO and hydrated lime to solidify silt as abutment backfill. The optimum ratio of firming agent and the compaction and mechanical properties of reinforced soil were revealed through compaction test and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) test was used to study the pore characteristics and hydration products of reinforced soil. 6% hydrated lime and alkali activated slag were used to solidify silt and fill the model of subgrade respectively. The pavement settlement regulation and soil internal stress-strain regulation of subgrade with different materials under uniformly distributed load were studied by model experiment. The effect of alkali activated slag curing agent on curing silt was verified. The research results can provide technical support for highway construction in silt area of the Yellow River alluvial plain.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2022.04a
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• pp.109-110
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• 2022

Recently, it tend to increase the high-rise and large-scale of buildings and the developtment of construction technology can to be applied reinforced concrete structures to high-rise buildings. However, when a high-rise buildings is constructed with reinforced concrete, it has a disadvantage that buildings weight increases. In order to resolve the weight of reinforced concrete structures, various types of lightweight aggregates become development and research. Although lightweight aggregates can be reduced the weight of concrete, the strength of ITZ(Interfacial Transition Zone) is lowered due to its less strength than natural aggregates. In this study, an experimental study was conducted to coat the surface of lightweight aggregates with GGBFS(ground granulated blast furnace slag) to improve the strength of cement matrix mixed with lightweight aggregates. Result of this experimental study shows that the compressive strnegth of the surface coating lightweight aggregates was higher than general lightweight aggregates. Also, it was considered that this is because the pore at the ITZ of the surface-coated lightweight aggregates mixed cement matrix are filled with GGBFS fine particle.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.205-212
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• 2016

This research investigates the influence of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) composition on the alkali-activated slag cement (AASC). Aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$) was added to GGBFS binder between 2% and 16% by weight. The alkaline activators KOH (potassium hydroxide) was used and the water to binder ratio of 0.50. The strength development results indicate that increasing the amount of $Al_2O_3$ enhanced hydration. The 2M KOH + 16% $Al_2O_3$ and 4M KOH + 16% $Al_2O_3$ specimens had the highest strength, with an average of 30.8 MPa and 45.2 MPa, after curing for 28days. The strength at 28days of 2M KOH + 16% $Al_2O_3$ was 46% higher than that of 2M KOH (without $Al_2O_3$). Also, the strength at 28days of 4M KOH + 16% $Al_2O_3$ was 44% higher than that of 4M KOH (without $Al_2O_3$). Increase the $Al_2O_3$ contents of the binder results in the strength development at all curing ages. The incorporation of AASC tended to increases the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) due to the similar effects of strength, but increasing the amount of $Al_2O_3$ adversely decreases the water absorption and porosity. Higher addition of $Al_2O_3$ in the specimens increases the Al/Ca and Al/Si in the hydrated products. SEM and EDX analyses show that the formation of much denser microstructures with $Al_2O_3$ addition.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.63-69
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• 2012

Recently, the cement industries brought very severe environment problems such as resource depletion and global warming with massive carbon dioxide during its production. The number of cases using industrial by-products such as the ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) in concrete mixtures is increasing to resolve the environmental issue. GGBFS is mainly used in the range between 20 to 50% to replace cement, but nowadays lots of researches are carried out to develop the alkali-activated slag (AAS) concrete with no cement. In this study, the early age properties of alkali activated slag (AAS) mortar are investigated to obtain the fundamental data for AAS concrete application to structural members. The experimental variables were the water-binder ratios of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 and NaOH as the alkali activator of 4%, 8%, and 12% by the mass of GGBFS, and compressive strength, flow, setting time, and ultrasonic pulse velocity of AAS mortars were measured and analyzed. It is found from the test results that as the normal concrete the lower W/B, the higher compressive strength. However, superplasticizer has to be used for producing high strength AAS concrete because the workability of AAS mortar are significantly lowered.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.101-107
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• 2017

This study aimed to conduct the basic analysis on the fractal characteristics of cementitious materials. The pore structure of cement paste incorporating ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) was measured using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and the fractal characteristics were investigated using different models. Because the pore structure of GGBFS-blended cement paste is an irregular system in the various range from nanometer to millimeter, the characteristics of pore region in the different scale may not be adequately described when the fractal dimension was calculated over the whole scale range. While Zhang and Li model enabled analyzing the fraction dimension of pore structure over the three divided scale ranges of micro, small capillary and macro regions, Ji el al. model refined analysis on the fractal characteristics of micro pore region consisting of micro I region corresponding to gel pores and micro II region corresponding to small capillary pores. As the pore size decreased, both models suggested that the pore surface of micro region became more irregular than macro region and the complexity of pores increased.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.321-329
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• 2016

The use of ternary blended cement consisting of Portland cement, granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) and fly ash has been on the rise to improve marine concrete structure's resistance to chloride attack. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate changes in chloride attack resistibility of concrete through NT Build 492-based chloride migration experiments and test of concrete's ability to resist chloride ion penetration under ASTM C 1202(KS F 2271) when 1.5-2.0% of alkali-sulfate activator (modified alkali sulfate type) was added to the ternary blended cement mixtures (40% ordinary Portland cement + 40% GGBFS + 20% fly ash). Then, the results found the followings: Even though the slump for the plain concrete slightly declined depending on the use of the alkali-sulfate activator, compressive strength from day 2 to day 7 improved by 17-42%. In addition, the coefficient from non-steady-state migration experiments for the plain concrete measured at day 28 decreased by 36-56% depending on the use of alkali-sulfate. Furthermore, total charge passed according to the test for electrical indication of concrete's ability to resist chloride ion penetration decreased by 33-62% at day 7 and by 31-48% at day 28. As confirmed in previous studies, reactivity in the GGBFS and fly ash improved because of alkali activation. As a result, concrete strength increased due to reduced total porosity.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2017

Cement industry is typical carbon-emission industry. If the industrial by-products(granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS), fly ash, etc.) are used a large amount, it might be able to reduce cement consumption and mitigate carbon emissions. In this case, however, decrease of early strength is relatively large. Therefore, there is a limitation in increase of the amount of substitute. Considering these circumstances, it would be a good solution to reduce carbon emissions in cement industry to improve the performances of mixed cement through proper alkali-activation in Portland blended cement using GGBFS or fly ash. Therefore, this study prepared concrete in ready-mixed concrete manufacturing facilities with an addition of a binder which used 2.0% modified alkali sulfate activator after mixing Portland cement, GGBFS and fly ash in the ratio of 4:4:2 and assessed its basic properties. The results found the followings: The use of modified alkali-sulfate activator slightly reduced slump and shortened setting time. As a result, bleeding capacity decreased while early strength improved. In addition, there is no big difference in carbonation resistance. It appears that there should be continued experiments and analyses on the related long-term aged specimens.