• Resources Recycling
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.19-28
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• 2010

Attempts to increase the utilization of a by-products such as fly ash and blast furnace slag to partially replace the cement in concrete are gathering momentum. But most of by-products is currently dumped in landfills, thus creating a threat to the environment. Many researches on alkali-activated concrete that does not need the presence of cement as a binder have been carried out recently. However, most study deal only with alkali-activated blast furnace slag or fly ash, as for the combined use of the both, little information is reported. In this study, we investigated the influence of mixture ratio of fly ash/slag, type of alkaline activator and curing condition on the workability and compressive strength of mortar in oder to develop cementless alkali-activated concrete. In view of the results, we found out that the mixture ratio of fly ash/slag and the type of alkaline activator always results to be significant factors. But the influence of curing temperature in the strength development of mortar is lower than the contribution due to other factors. At the age of 28days, the mixture 50% fly ash and 50% slag activated with 1:1 the mass ratio of 9M NaOH and sodium silicate, develop compressive strength of about 65 MPa under $20^{\circ}C$ curing.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.393-394
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• 2009

Recently, various researchers have studied alkali-activated concrete that do cementless as the binder. This study analyzed the effect on alkali-activated mortar by fineness of blast slag as the binder with no use of cement, by observing workability and compressive strength.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.39-47
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• 2015

In this study, the properties of strength and drying shrinkage of alkali-activated slag cement (AASC) with magnesium oxide (MgO) contents between 0 and 16 wt% were investigated. The ground granulated furnace blast slag (GGBFS) was activated by potassium hydroxide (KOH) and dosage of activator was 2M and 4M. The MgO was replaced with 2% to 16% of GGBFS by weight. The water-binder ratio (w/b) was 0.5. In the result, the higher MgO content leads to a slightly higher degree of reaction and thus to a higher compressive strength at all ages. The compressive strength and ultra sonic velocity (UPV) increased with increases MgO contents. The drying shrinkage of AASC was decreased as the contents of MgO increases. The results from SEM confirmed that there were densified reaction product of higher MgO content specimens.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.252-258
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• 2014

With the vision of 'a low carbon green develop' various industrial by-products were used as replacement of cement, in order to reduce $CO_2$ emissions from the manufacturing process of cement. Blast furnace slag is one of the industrial by-products. Due to the similar chemical compositions to ordinary Portland cement, blast furnace slag have been widely used in concrete with minimum side effects. Hence, in recent years, alkali activated slag-based composites are extensively studied by many researchers. However, the alkali activator can cause a number of problems in practice. Therefore, in this study, an alternative way of activating the slag was investigated. To activate the slag without using an alkali activator, calcium sulfate dihydrate was chosen and mixed with natural recycled fine aggregate. Fundamental properties of the slag-based mortar were tested to evaluate the effect of calcium sulfate dihydrate.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

Use of cement in stabilizing the sulfate-bearing clay soils forms ettringite/ thaumasite in the presence of moisture leads to excessive swelling and causes damages to structures built on them. The development and use of non-traditional stabilisers such as alkali activated ground granulated blast-furnace slag (AGGBS) and enzyme for soil stabilisation is recommended because of its lower cost and the non detrimental effects on the environment. The objective of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of AGGBS and enzyme on improving the volume change properties of sulfate bearing soil as compared to ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The soil for present study has been collected from Tilda, Chhattisgarh, India and 5000 ppm of sodium sulfate has been added. Various dosages of the selected stabilizers have been used and the effect on plasticity index, differential swell index and swelling pressure has been evaluated. XRD, SEM and EDX were also done on the untreated and treated soil for identifying the mineralogical and microstructural changes. The tests results show that the AGGBS and enzyme treated soil reduces swelling and plasticity characteristics whereas OPC treated soil shows an increase in swelling behaviour. It is observed that the swell pressure of the OPC-treated sulfate bearing soil became 1.5 times higher than that of the OPC treated non-sulfate soil.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.117-125
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• 2014

This paper examines the fundamental properties of alkali-activated slag cement (AASC) activated by sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The water to binder (W/B) ratio was 0.4 and 0.5. And concentration of activator were 2M and 4M. Five mix design of each W/B ratios was considered. The N0 mixture was KS L 5109 method and N1~N4 were varied in different mixing time, mix step and entering points of fine aggregate. Test results clearly showed that the flow value, strength and drying shrinkage development of AASC were significantly dependent on the entering point of fine aggregate. The flow value tended to decreases with delaying entering point of fine aggregate. The compressive strength and flexural strength increases with delaying entering point. Moreover, the XRD analysis confirmed that there were sustain these results. The drying shrinkage increases with delaying entering point of fine aggregate. Futhermore, a modified mixing method incorporating all hereby experimentally derived parameters, is proposed to improvement the physical properties of AASC.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.213-228
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• 2014

Alkali-activated binder (AAB) is recently being considered as a sustainable alternative to portland cement (PC) due to its low carbon dioxide emission and diversion of industrial wastes and by-products such as fly ash and slag from landfills. In order to comprehend the behavior of AAB, detailed knowledge on relations between microstructure and mechanical properties are important. To address the issue, a new approach to characterize hardened pastes of AAB containing fly ash as well as those containing fly ash and slag was adopted using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectra microanalyses. The volume stoichiometries of the alkali activation reactions were used to estimate the quantities of the sodium aluminosilicate (N-A-S-H) and calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) produced by these reactions. The 3D plots of Si/Al, Na/Al and Ca/Si atom ratios given by the microanalyses were compared with the estimated quantities of CSH(S) to successfully determine the unique chemical compositions of the N-A-S-H and CSH(S) for ten different AAB at three different curing temperatures using a constrained nonlinear least squares optimization formulation by general algebraic modeling system. The results show that the theoretical and experimental quantities of N-A-S-H and CSH(S) were in close agreement with each other. The $R^2$ values were 0.99 for both alkali-activated fly ash and alkali-activated slag binders.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2017

Red mud is an inorganic by-product produced from the mineral processing of alumina from Bauxite ores. The development of alkali-activated slag-red mud cement can be a representative study aimed at recycling the strong alkali of the red mud as a construction material. This study is to investigate the optimum water content, compressive strength, water absorption and efflorescence of alkali-activated slag-red mud soil pavement according to binder type. The results showed that the optimum water content, moisture absorption coefficient and efflorescence area of alkali-activated slag-red mud soil pavement increased but the compressive strength of that decreased as the redmud content increased.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.345-352
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the expansion of alkali-activated mortar based on ground granulated blast furnace slag containing reactive aggregate due to alkali-silica reaction. In addition, this study was particularly concerned with the behavior of these alkaline materials in the presence of reactive aggregates. The experimental program included expansion measurement of the mortar bar specimens, as well as the determination of the morphology and composition of the alkali-silica reaction products by using scanning electron microscopy(SEM), and energy dispersive x-ray(EDX). The experiment showed that while alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag mortars showed expansion due to the alkali-silica reaction, the expansion was 0.1% at Curing Day 14, showing that it is safe. After the accelerated test, SEM and BEM analysis showed the presence of alkali-silica gel and rim around the aggregate and cement paste. According to the EDX, the reaction products decreased markedly as alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag was used. In addition, for the substitutive materials of mineral admixture, a further study on improving the quality of alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag is needed to assure of the durability properties of concrete.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.1005-1008
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to estimate basic mechanical properties of alkali-activated concretes based on GGBS(Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag). In this study, various mix ratios of alkali activated concretes based on sodium silicate and GGBS were set to evaluate concrete's compressive strengths and strains on the basis of results of existing alkali-activated cements and preliminary concrete tests, which were already performed by authors [Ref. 1]. Compressive strengths of concretes of ages 1, 3, 7, 28, 56 and 91 days were tested and investigated, respectively, and at early ages (< 7days) alkali-activated slag concrete (AASC) showed a high strength development, compared to that of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). A compressive strengths of AASC at age-3days range between 18 and 24 MPa, while those of OPC range 12 and 15 MPa. The stress-strain curve after maximum stress, on the other hand, is approximately reached at a compressive strain between 0.002 and 0.0025, which mechanical property is very similar to that of OPC.