• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.127-140
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• 2021

In this study, twenty-five geopolymer (GP) mixes were prepared by varying the alkaline solids to Metakaolin (MK) and sodium silicate to NaOH ratios from 0.1 to 0.5 and 0.2 to 1.0, respectively, thus giving a wide range of molar ratios of silica to alumina, sodium oxide to alumina and water to sodium oxide. The compressive strength of these GP mixes was determined for four curing schemes involving oven curing at 100℃ for 24 h and three ambient curing with the curing ages of 3, 14, and 28 days. The test results revealed that for the manufacture of GP binder for structural applications of strength up to 90 MPa, the molar ratio of silica to alumina should be greater than 2.3, sodium oxide to alumina should be between 0.6 to 1.2, and water to sodium oxide should not exceed 12. The compressive strength of ambient cured GP mortar gets stabilized at 28 days of ambient curing. Experimental findings were also corroborated by GP microstructure analysis. The embodied energy of MK-based GP mortars, especially of high strength, is significantly less than the cement mortar of equivalent strength.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.529-543
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• 2024

The bonding efficacy of steel I-section embedded in metakaolin-fly ash-based geopolymer concrete (MK-FA-GC) was investigated in this study. Push-out tests were conducted on nine column specimens to evaluate the influence of compressive strength of concrete, embedded length of steel I-section, thickness of concrete cover, and stirrup ratio on the bond performance. Failure patterns, load-slip relationships, bond strength, and distribution of bond stress among the specimens were analyzed. The characteristic bond strength of geopolymer concrete (GC) increased with higher compressive strength, longer embedded steel section length, thicker concrete cover, and larger stirrup ratio. Empirical formulas for bond strength at the loading end were derived based on experimental data and a bond-slip constructive model for steel-reinforced MK-FA-GC was proposed. The calculated bond-slip curves showed good agreement with experimental results. Furthermore, numerical simulations using ABAQUS software were performed on column specimens by incorporating the suggested bond-slip relationship into connector elements to simulate the interface behavior between MK-FA-GC and the steel section. The simulation results showed a good correlation with the experimental findings.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.457-460
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• 2003

This paper discusses laboratory evaluations to assess the physical properties of antiwashout underwater concrete (AWC) containing pozzolanic materials such as fly ash (FA), blast furnace slag (SG) and metakaolin(MK). For the experiments, pH value, suspended solids, slump flow, efflux time and compressive strength were tested. According to the results from compressive strength test, MK10 showed the very high compressive strength characteristic during the entire curing days, but the rate of strength development was decreased as time goes by.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2009

In this study, experimental findings on the resistance to magnesium sulfate attack of portland cement mortar and paste specimens incorporating metakaolin (MK) are presented. Specimens with four replacement levels of metakaolin (0, 5, 10 and 15% of cement by mass) were exposed to solutions with concentrations of 0.424% and 4.24% as $MgSO_4$ at ambient temperature. The resistance of mortar specimens was evaluated through visual examination and linear expansion measurements. Additionally, in order to identify the products formed by magnesium sulfate attack, microstructural analyses such as XRD, DSC and SEM/EDS were also performed on the paste samples incorporating metakaolin. Results confirmed that mortar specimens with a high replacement level of metakaolin exhibited lower resistance to a higher concentration of magnesium sulfate solution. It was found that the negative effect of metakaolin on the magnesium sulfate attack is partially attributed to the formation of gypsum and thaumasite. Conclusively, it is necessary to pay a special attention when using metakaolin in concrete structures, particularly under highly concentrated magnesium sulfate environment.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.11-23
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• 2022

Conventional concrete needs some improvement in the mechanical properties, which can be obtained by different admixtures. However, making concrete samples costume always time and money. In this paper, different types of hybrid algorithms are applied to develop predictive models for forecasting compressive strength (CS) of concretes containing metakaolin (MK) and fly ash (FA). In this regard, three different algorithms have been used, namely multilayer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF), and support vector machine (SVR), to predict CS of concretes by considering most influencers input variables. These algorithms integrated with the grey wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm to increase the model's accuracy in predicting (GWMLP, GWRBF, and GWSVR). The proposed MLP models were implemented and evaluated in three different layers, wherein each layer, GWO, fitted the best neuron number of the hidden layer. Correspondingly, the key parameters of the SVR model are identified using the GWO method. Also, the optimization algorithm determines the hidden neurons' number and the spread value to set the RBF structure. The results show that the developed models all provide accurate predictions of the CS of concrete incorporating MK and FA with R² larger than 0.9972 and 0.9976 in the learning and testing stage, respectively. Regarding GWMLP models, the GWMLP1 model outperforms other GWMLP networks. All in all, GWSVR has the worst performance with the lowest indices, while the highest score belongs to GWRBF.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.417-420
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• 2008

The requirement for durability of concrete is increasing recently as a large-scale concrete structure is built. For this reason, the concern about high-durable concrete is being high. Recently, metakaoline to be profitable in economical aspect as well as to have strength and durability of level similar to silica fume is evaluated highly as new admixture. In this study, the scaling, the drying shrinkage, the chloride resistance and the air-void structure are compared for both metakaolin and silica fume concrete. According to the results, the replacement of metakaoline improved the resistance of chloride penetration, freezing and thawing in concrete. On the other hand, as metakaolin was replaced to 10%, it was similar level with OPC in the property of scaling. It was showed that replacement of only metakaoline was similar with OPC in the drying shrinkage. However, MS5 reduced the drying shrinkage about 10%. In conclusion, replacement of the metakaoline 10% is the most excellent performance in terms of durability of concrete.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.65-76
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• 2019

This paper investigates the effect of recycled glass powder (RGP) on flowing properties of self-compacting mortars (SCMs) containing different ratios of fillers and superplasticizer dosages. Fly ash (FA), nano-silica (NS), micro-silica (MS), metakaolin (MK) and rice husk ash (RHA) are used as fillers and their synergistic effect with RFP is studied. The effects of fillers and high-range water reducer (HRWR) on flowing ability of mortars are primarily determined by slump flow and V-funnel flow time tests. The results showed that for composites with a higher RGP content, the mortar flowing ability increased but tended to decrease when the composites containing 10% MK or 5% RHA. However, the flowing ability of samples incorporating 5% RGP and 10% SF or 25% FA showed an opposite result that their slump flow spread decreased and then increased with increasing RGP content. For specimens with 3% NS, the influence of RGP content on flowing properties was not significant. Except RHA and MS, the fillers studied in this paper could reduce the dosage of HRWR required for achieving the same followability. Also, the mixture parameters were determined and indicated that the flowability of mixtures was also affected by the content of sand and specific surface area of cement materials. It is believed that excess fine particles provided ball-bearing effect, which could facilitate the movement of coarse particles and alleviate the interlocking action among particles. Also, it can be concluded that using fillers in conjunction with RGP as cementitious materials can reduce the material costs of SCM significantly.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.319-332
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• 2021

The performance of gene expression programming (GEP) in predicting the compressive strength of bacteria-incorporated geopolymer concrete (GPC) was examined in this study. Ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), new bacterial strains, fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), metakaolin (MK), and manufactured sand were used as ingredients in the concrete mixture. For the geopolymer preparation, an 8 M sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution was used, and the ambient curing temperature (28℃) was maintained for all mixtures. The ratio of sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) to NaOH was 2.33, and the ratio of alkaline liquid to binder was 0.35. Based on experimental data collected from the literature, an evolutionary-based algorithm (GEP) was proposed to develop new predictive models for estimating the compressive strength of GPC containing bacteria. Data were classified into training and testing sets to obtain a closed-form solution using GEP. Independent variables for the model were the constituent materials of GPC, such as FA, MK, SF, and Bacillus bacteria. A total of six GEP formulations were developed for predicting the compressive strength of bacteria-incorporated GPC obtained at 1, 3, 7, 28, 56, and 90 days of curing. 80% and 20% of the data were used for training and testing the models, respectively. R2 values in the range of 0.9747 and 0.9950 (including train and test dataset) were obtained for the concrete samples, which showed that GEP can be used to predict the compressive strength of GPC containing bacteria with minimal error. Moreover, the GEP models were in good agreement with the experimental datasets and were robust and reliable. The models developed could serve as a tool for concrete constructors using geopolymers within the framework of this research.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.127-134
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• 2021

A hydrophobic emulsion consisting of PMHS and PVA was mixed into a cement mortar to observe changes in cement hydrate and microstructure, and to experimentally evaluate compressive strength and flexural strength. The hydrophobic emulsion was added with metakaolin and PVA fibers, and the stirring speed and sequence were adjusted to prepare a shell-concept hydrophobic emulsion. It was then mixed when mixing mortar to enhance filling of the internal pores and change of the hydrates. It was observed that the mortar mixed with a hydrophobic emulsion was filled with micropores and a coating film was formed on the surface of the hydrates by the emulsion. It was analyzed that the total pore area and porosity of the mortar mixed with the emulsion decreased from 30% to 60% compared to OPC, excluding the 50MK variable, which was extremely reduced and the median pore diameter decreased in some variables. It was also found that the compressive strength of the mortar mixed with emulsion 1% was increased up to 20%, but the strength of the mortar specimen mixed with 2% decreased to 50%.