RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE INDIAN CONCRETE

INDUSTRY IN THE USE OF GGBS IN CONCRETE AT RMC

BATCHING PLANTS AS PARTIAL REPLACEMENT TO OPC
CEMENT AND ITS EFFECTS ON CONCRETE DURABILITY AND
SUSTAINABILTY IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT
L.R. Manjunatha 1, Sandhya. R. Anvekar 2, M.V. Yogananda 3
1

AGM-Marketing, JSW Cement limited, Bharatiyar University India,

2
VTU, Bangalore, India
3
JSW Cement limited, India

ABSTRACT
Sustainability, or sustainable development in concrete and construction industry, is aimed at
improving the quality of life for everyone, now and for the next generations. It encompasses
environmental, economic and social dimensions, as well as the concept of stewardship, the
responsible management of resources we use in construction and particularly concrete
production in India being the second largest producer of cement in the world. The future
challenge for the construction industry in India is clearly to meet the growing needs for
infrastructure development and housing while at the same time limiting the impact of its
burdens in CO2 emissions due to construction by drastic improvements in the use of
alternative materials in construction and supplementary cementing materials as partial
replacements to OPC.
Cement and steel production accounts for almost 19-20 % of CO2 emissions in India. Due to
exponential growing in urbanization and industrialization, byproducts from the steel
industries such as GGBS are becoming an increasing concern for recycling and waste
management. At same time, studies have revealed usage of GGBS in concrete as a partial
replacement for OPC have increased the compressive strength, tensile strength, durability
and decreases the permeability, embodied energy and cost per cubic meter. By knowing the
numerous advantages of industrial byproducts, Ready-mixed concrete (RMC) industries
have partially replaced the cement with Fly Ash, GGBS, ultrafine GGBS or Silica Fume,
which are by-products of other industries. Currently over 40-45 % of the concrete supplied
by RMC companies in India has a replacement of Fly ash and GGBS. The acceptance level
for blended cements and concretes in India is increasing because of inherent mechanical
properties of mineral admixtures and easy availability in southern and western markets.
GGBS blended concrete have been used successfully in concrete for many years in many
countries throughout the world were structures have to be designed for durability
requirements in very aggressive environment.
The research paper deals with how the RMC and concrete industry in India is progressively
using GGBS, how the growth and the adoptability is happening through RMC way, case
studies which have revealed durability and permeability of concrete in presence of GGBS.
KEY WORDS: GGBS, OPC, RMC, fly ash, silica fume

INTRODUCTION
Ready Mixed Concrete Industry in India
The Ready mix concrete business in India is in its infancy but it is having a steady growth in
the last 2 decades. For example, 70% of cement produced in a developed country like Japan
is used by Ready Mix concrete business there. In Europe and USA it is about 60% [1]. Here
in India Ready Mix concrete business used around just 2 % in the beginning of the 90S and
presently the commercial RMC is at 9 -10 % of total cement production with another 10%
estimated to come from project based captive RMC plants totally taking the mechanized
RMC Production to 20 % of the cement production in India and there is still a lot to catch up
in terms of growth and conversion of Site mix Concrete(SMC)to Ready mixed concrete [2].
The Indian cement industry is the second largest in the world with an installed capacity of
340 million tonnes and the production for the year 2013-14 was around 260 million tonnes
and presently the commercial RMC alone consumes around 9-10 % of the total cement
production and producing approximately 30-32 million cubic meter of commercial readymixed concrete annually.
Captive RMC plants which are set up at project sites in metros and cities have been
estimated to produce around another 35 million cubic meter of ready -mixed concrete
annually, which in turn taking the total production of mechanized concrete (production of
concrete from RMC batching plants) in India to about 65-67 million cubic meter annually.
In the developed countries the cement consumption through RMC route is about 70-75 %
(USA) and 65-70 % (Europe and Japan). [3]
As a testimony to the growth of RMC industry in India, as per best of the knowledge,
currently there are more than 900 commercial RMC plants present and operating in about 95
to 100 cities and towns across India including metros, tier 1 and tier 2 cities and in total
there are more than 2600 ready-mixed concrete batching plants in operation in many metros,
cities, and various project locations across the country.
An added advantage of RMC is quantity of OPC usage can be reduced in Ready Mixed
Concrete by replacing a good portion of cement by supplementary cementing materials like
Ground granulated blast furnace slag(GGBS), Fly ash, Microsilica with are industrial by
products which otherwise would have been solid waste products and caused serious
environmental issues.
In the present scenario, cost of cement have been increased abruptly which leads to increase
of cost of concrete. To overcome the inflation, supplementary cementitious materials are
used in conjunction with OPC. So that the, durability, Sustainability and cost effective can
be achieved with the usage of mineral admixtures.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Need for durability and sustainability
As worldwide awareness and concern over increased carbon emissions and its direct impact
over global climate change increases, there is intense pressure over all industries to reduce
their emissions. The backbone of the construction industry is concrete, which is widely
regarded as a high energy material with a current consumption of 1 cubic meter per person
per year. Some of the proposed alternatives are Blended Concretes that utilize industrial
wastes such as Fly ash and GGBS. [4]
Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) has been used for around 200 years as a binder material.
However OPC has high embodied energy of 4.2MJ/kg [5][6]. The contribution of OPC is
approximately 57% of global man made CO2 emissions [7] high CO2 emissions arising
from OPC manufacturing are from calcination of limestone, and high energy consumption
during manufacturing. [5]
During the recent past many alternatives to OPC concrete have been proposed to reduce
green house gas emissions which are Blended Cement Concretes, comprising OPC that has
been partly substituted by supplementary cementitious materials, as binders for concrete.
Commonly used substitutes include Fly ash, a fine waste residue that is collected from the
emissions liberated by coal burning power stations, and ground granulated blast furnace slag
(GGBS), a waste by-product from steelmaking. According to Flower and Sanjayan use of
blended cements results in reduction of CO2 emissions by 1322%. These estimates vary
according to the local conditions at the source of raw materials, binder quantity, and amount
of OPC replacement, type of manufacturing facilities, climate, energy sources, and
transportation distances. [8]
Scope for research
The Indian Ready mix concrete Industry is totally an unorganized sector .The First
Commercial RMC plant was started somewhere in the year 1992 at Pune, Since then the
industry has gradually grown all over India. There has been the use of green products like
Fly ash and GGBS for making the RMC products more durable, Sustainable and Eco
friendly and many consumers of RMC are not aware of the new developments in concretes
like special eco friendly concretes and concepts.
Since 1992 there is not much work has been done to estimate the approximate
number of RMC plants in India being operated and how much approximate volumes
are being produced and what is the scope for green marketing of green building raw
materials like Fly ash and GGBS etc
The availability and usage of secondary cementitious materials (SCMS) like Fly ash,
GGBS, etc to make the RMC Concrete products more sustainable and durable and
the scope for green marketing.
To prove the durability and permeability properties of GGBS based concrete in few
RMCS for different grades of concrete at different locations.

Objective of the study

To study the Indian consumers awareness and knowledge on the use of industrial by
products like Fly ash and GGBS which are green and sustainable in Concrete
productions as replacement of OPC in RMC Plants.
To study and estimate the green marketing potential for products like GGBS and Fly
ash for use in concrete production in the Indian RMC Industry.
To study the effect of GGBS on durable properties of concrete in RMC plant.
To compare the durability and permeability properties of GGBS based concrete and
Fly ash based concrete.

BACK GROUND TO MATERIALS UNDER STUDY

Fly ash
Fly Ash is the finely divided mineral residue resulting from the combustion of powdered
coal in electric generating plants.
GGBS (Ground granulated blast furnace slag)
GGBS is obtained by quenching molten iron blast furnace slag in water or Steam, to
produce a glassy granular product that is then dried and ground into a fine powder. Various
parameters of GGBS and Fly ash are compared and tabulated in Table 1.
Table 1 - Comparison of various parameters of mineral admixtures under study
Mineral Admixtures

Slag
Blast furnace quenching of
molten material

Fly ash
Thermal Power Plants fine residue
of combustion

Chemical composition

Similar to that of Cement

high SiO2 and Al2O3, but low in CaO

Hydration
Permitted replacement to cement

Hydraulic
25 70 %
Very stringent stable chemical
composition of slag

Non -hydraulic
15 -35%
Not as stringent as in case of Steel /
Iron

Source

Production process

Impact of using secondary cementitious materials in concrete

Reduction in the emission of CO2 from cement production plants.

Improved durability.
Reduced potential for cracking.
Reduced permeability.
Reduced corrosion repairs cost nearly by 5% of developed nations GDP
Use of waste or by-products reduces the clinker usage.
Increased benefit to cost ratio and Longer service life.

Fly Ash vis--vis GGBS

Consistency of GGBS v/s Fly Ash
Slag is the co-product of a controlled process from iron production, which results in
a very uniform composition from source to source. Fly ash is a byproduct of electric
power generation that varies from source to source. This is one reason why Slag can
be used in much larger amounts.
Both are used as a replacement for a portion of the Portland cement. Slag replaces as
much as 50 percent in normal concrete (and up to 70 percent in special applications
such as mass concrete). Fly -Ash is usually limited to 15 or 35 percent.
Indian Fly ash contains about 55 percent SiO2, out of which only 20 to 25 percent
are in glassy form. Hence, addition of 100 kg of fly ash (that is, 25 percent of OPC),
will consume only about 14 percent of Ca(OH)2; and 86 percent will remain
unconsumed.
This calculation is in line with the fact that all of Ca(OH)2 in concrete was shown to
be consumed only when 50 percent of Slag or 30 percent of silica fume was used,
which is mostly active silica.
Fly ash is not a hydraulic material, hydration will not take place on its own, and it
will only harden with the use of activators (e.g. OPC).
GGBS, in contrast, is a hydraulic material, which means that it will set and harden
due to a chemical reaction with water.
After hardening, it will retain some strength development and remain stable even
under water. Concrete containing GGBS cement has a higher ultimate strength than
concrete that uses 100% Portland cement.
Advantages of GGBS over Fly ash on replacement levels
The permitted replacement ratio of Fly Ash in OPC is 15-35% (IS 1489 Part-1), but
its usually no more than 30% in concrete.
On the other hand, the permitted replacement ratio of GGBS in OPC or concrete is
25-70% (IS 455). It could even be replaced up to 85% in some of the European
countries.
With the same content of cementitious material (the total weight of Portland cement
plus GGBS), similar 28-day strengths to Portland cement will normally be achieved
when using up to 50 percent GGBS.
At higher GGBS percentages the cementitious content may need to be increased to
achieve equivalent 28-day strength. GGBS concrete gains strength more steadily
than equivalent concrete made with Portland cement.
Typically a Portland cement concrete will achieve about 75 percent of its 28-day
strength at seven days, with a small increase of five to 10 per cent between 28 and 90
days.

CASE STUDIES IN INDIA ON THE USE OF GGBS IN RMC INDUSTRY FOR

COST EFFECTIVENESS, DURABILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Compressive Strength Test and Durability test
In situ materials such as Aggregates, Cement, GGBS, Fly ash and water is used for mix
proportioning in presents of admixtures keeping constant slump and water-cement ratio.
Various combination of Cement - GGBS and Cement - Fly ash concrete of different grades
were carried and Mix details with compressive strength are tabulated below.
Table 2 - Location: Tricon RMC, Pune
Grade
M20
M25
M30
M35
M40
M45
M50

Mix design
GGBS mix
Fly ash mix
Cement
GGBS
Cement
Fly ash
200
125
245
85.0
225
140
265
90.0
250
150
300
90.0
285
145
340
80.0
315
135
370
70.0
325
135
400
60.0
337
140
450
50.0

Concrete compressive strength

7 days
28 days
Fly ash
GGBS
Fly ash
GGBS
16.8
15.2
30.0
34.0
20.8
19.9
34.5
40.9
25.0
22.2
40.0
46.2
30.0
25.6
44.7
51.0
34.0
28.4
51.5
58.2
38.0
32.3
56.3
61.2
42.4
36.9
61.0
65.0

Compressive Strength at 28 days

70
60
50
40
30

46,2

40,9
34
30

40

51
44,7

61,2

58,2
51,5

56,3

65
61

Fly ash

34,5

GGBS

20
10
0

M20

M25

M30

M35

M40

M45

M50

Grade of Concrete

Figure 1 Variation of Compressive strength of different grades of concrete with respect to

Fly ash and GGBS content
From Table 2, it can be observe that, replacement level of GGBS to cement is high compare
to Fly ash with respect to any grade of concrete. From Figure 1, we can clearly say that 28
days compressive strength of GGBS based M20 grade concrete is higher over Fly ash based
concrete and the similar trend is carried for different grades also. This was probably due to
involve of GGBS in both Pozzolanic and cementitious reactions. Long-term strength test

were carried for M25 grade GGBS and Fly ash based concrete for 90days which showed
36.2Mpa and 28.8Mpa respectively.
Rapid Chloride penetration Test (RCPT)
In situ materials such as Aggregates, Cement, GGBS and water is used for mix
proportioning in presents of admixtures keeping constant slump and water-cement ratio for
M20 grade concrete. Various combination of Cement GGBS concrete were casted and
tested for RCPT as per ASTMC 1202-97 and results are tabulated in Table 3.
Table 3 Location: RMC Ready mix India, Mangalore plant
GGBS
replacement
Level in %
0

25

40

50

Cube ID

RCPT, Coulombs

3-A-1

2196

3-A-2
3-A-3
4-B-1
4-B-2
4-B-3
4-C-1
4-C-2
4-C-3
4-D-1
4-D-2
4-D-3

2186
2279
1127
1015
961
647
608
629
549
520
510

Average of RCPT
coulombs

2220

1034

628

526

From Table 3, it is clear that increase of GGBS content in concrete decreases the RCPT
value. This may be due to pore refinement by GGBS at microlevel which leads to lesser
voids inturn leads to long term strength.
STATUS OF GGBS PRODUCTION, AVAILABILITY AND USAGE IN INDIA.
Ready mix concrete industry is slowly and steadily adopting and increasing the usage of
secondary cementing materials like Fly ash and GGBS in the production of ready-mixed
concretes contrary to the use of pure ordinary port land cement concrete in the ready-mixed
concrete productions in the initial stages of RMC Industry growth in the early 90s.
In the late 90s and early 2000 ready-mixed concrete industry predominantly used blended
concretes made with Fly ash as it was abundantly available from various nearby thermal
power producing plants and was well received by the customers even though there was very
much resistance from customers, structural consultants and builders in the early stage due to
lack of awareness.

The year 2006 was the major entry of GGBS to the Indian market by a well known steel
company in the south Indian markets having its manufacturing facility at Karnataka, Andra
pradesh and Maharastra through their group cement company and later on many new
companies have entered the market with manufacturing facility for GGBS due to the
increased demand and potential.
GGBS is now mainly available in major southern and western Indian ready-mixed concrete
markets like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli,
Vizag, Vijayawada and Coimbatore etc
If we look at the ready mixed concrete industry in India today, it has grown exponentially
high due to availability and growth of technology, mechanization, resources and demand.
As per survey conducted by the Authors during the period from December 2009 to April
2013 on the spread of commercial Ready mixed concrete plants in cites throughout India,
and as per Table 4 listed below, there are more than 857 commercial RMC plants run by 5
large RMC companies like Ultratech, RMC readymix (India), Lafarge, ACC Concrete ,RDC
Concrete and 445 smaller RMC companies operating in 88 large and smaller cities and
towns across India producing approximately 2.25 million cum of commercial RMC monthly
and the numbers are growing every year.
Table 4: All India Commercial RMC Statistics as on April 2013

South India
Western &
Central
North India

43

177

314

Approx production
of RMC:
Cum/month
936147

18

142

324

753524

18

109

175

457380

Eastern India

22

44

99211

TOTAL

88

450

857

2246262

Region

City
locations

Number of
companies

Total RMC plantsAll India

Source: Data compiled by Authors. [9]

The usage of GGBS for producing concrete at RMC plants is increasing day by day in the
southern and western markets due to the availability of product and technical superiority.
As per survey it is estimated that average consumption of GGBS in the southern RMC
industry markets is near to one million mt per year and about 0.4 million mt in the western
India.
CONCLUSION
1. It can safely be concluded that GGBS, which till recent years has been treated as a waste
product of steelmaking plant, is in fact a valuable resource material. Its appropriate utilization
can provide an economic bonanza worth more than a billion dollars.

2. If we add the value of land which would otherwise be excavated for consumption or for
dumping of GGBS, value of agricultural produce from this land area and environmental
benefits in terms of reduction in emission of green house gases & reduction in mining
activity etc., the total worth of the saving would increase phenomenally.

3. Due to quality, availability, energy effective, low cost, it is widely used for construction
purpose which enriches the workability, mechanical properties, durability and sustainability.
4. Because of enriched properties of GGBS, it is widely used for RCC in all types of
foundations & Super Structure works, General building construction, Mass Concrete works
in dams, spillways, canals, foundations, Underground works, retaining walls, culverts &
drainage works, Effluent & sewage treatment plants, Marine work and many more.
5. RMC industry in southern and western Indian market is adopting the use of GGBS in
their concrete mixes for giving value addition to their customers in respect of cost
effectiveness, sustainability and durability performance.
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