Contemporary Engineering Sciences, Vol. 8, 2015, no.

13, 541 - 547

HIKARI Ltd, www.m-hikari.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.12988/ces.2015.53126

The Effect of Mineral Admixture on

the Compressive Strength Development of Concrete

Sun-Woo Kim

Department of Construction Engineering Education

Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, South Korea

Wan-Shin Park*

Department of Construction Engineering Education

Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, South Korea
(*Corresponding author)

Young-Il Jang

Department of Construction Engineering Education

Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, South Korea

Song-Hui Yun

Department of Construction Engineering Education

Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, South Korea

Hyun-Do Yun

Department of Architectural Engineering

Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, South Korea

Do-Gyum Kim

Korea Institute of Construction Technology

Goyang 411-712, South Korea

Copyright © 2015 Sun-Woo Kim et al. This article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
542 Sun-Woo Kim et al.

Abstract

To evaluate the compressive strength of mineral-admixtured concrete (MAC) that

incorporates fly ash (FA), ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) and silica
fume (SF), uniaxial compression tests were carried out in this study. For mix
proportions of concrete, a water-to-binder ratio were fixed to 0.40; compressive
strength is targeted to 42 MPa at 28 days. The cylinders for compressive tests were
fabricated and then placed in water at 20℃ for a total curing period of 91 days. The
compressive strength at each curing age (1, 7, 28 and 91 days) was measured to
evaluate the strength development characteristic of MAC. The MAC incorporating
GGBS or SF exhibited sufficient compressive strengths at 91 days, whereas those
at 7 and 28 days were under the specified compressive strength. These strength
characteristics of MAC were also proven by comparison of test results with
predictive equation of Eurocode 2.

Keywords: Mineral-admixtured concrete, Compressive strength, Ground

granulated blast-furnace slag, Silica fume, Fly ash, Curing age

1 Introduction
Mineral admixtures such as ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), fly
ash (FA) and silica fume (SF) are commonly used in combination with Portland
cement (PC) in concrete for many applications because they improve durability and
reduce porosity of concrete [1]. They also could lower cement requirement resulting
in leading to a reduction for CO2 generated by the production of cement [2]. Due to
these advantage, there are many studies on the use of the mineral admixture for
structural concrete [3-6]. Although it is well known that the ultimate strength is
higher for the same water-to-binder ratio, the GGBS has a significant shortage in
the use concrete that its strength development is considerably slower than that of
PC based concrete under standard curing temperature (20℃) [7]. Even though the
partial replacement of the mineral admixtures by weight increase the later strength
of concrete [8], use of the mineral-admixtured concrete in construction fields has
been reluctant because of lower early strength.
The aim of this paper is to predict the compressive strength development of the
mineral-admixtured concrete with age using predictive equations in Eurocode 2 [9].
For this purpose, the results obtained from the equation were compared with the
average results of the experiments.

2 Experimental Program
Table 1 indicates the mix proportions of concrete. In this study, water-binder
ratio were set to 0.40 for the target compressive strength of 42 MPa. With each
concrete mixture, 100mm x 200mm cylindrical specimens were cast for compress-
Effect of mineral admixture 543

ive strength test. The cylinders were then placed in water at 20℃ for a total curing
period of 91 days. The compressive strengths of the specimens were determined at
1, 7, 28 and 91 days in accordance with ASTM C 39 [10].

Table 1. Mixture proportions of concrete

Replacement Unit weight (kg/m3)

Mixture W/B S/a
ratio (%) Water Cement FA GGBS SF C F SP
OPC 0 0.40 0.41 165 405 0 0 0 1078 725 0.90
FA20 20 0.40 0.43 162 385 81 0 0 997 728 0.90
BS50 50 0.40 0.43 155 194 0 194 0 1054 769 0.75
BS65SF5 70 0.40 0.43 155 116 0 252 19 1048 765 0.75

3 Test Results and Discussion

The variation of compressive strength of concrete with age are presented in
Figure 1. It may be concluded from the Fig. 1 that the FA content of 20% cement
replacement causes an increase in compressive strength values. As reported by Roy,
[7], the concrete specimens partially replaced with only GGBS show considerably
slower strength development than that of OPC specimen under curing temperature
of 20℃). At 28 days, BS50 and BS65SF5 specimens showed 8.9% and 11.03%
lower compressive strengths than OPC specimens, respectively. However, the
compressive strength at 91 days of BS65SF5 specimen was comparable with that
of OPC specimen. Furthermore, BS50 specimen showed 7.43% higher compressive
strength than OPC specimen. It can be referred that GGBS is effective for the later
strength of concrete as concluded in Roy [7]. The compressive strength at each age
for concrete specimens is listed in Table 1.

60
Compressive Strength (MPa)

50

40

30
OPC
20
FA20

10 BS50
BS65SF5
0
0 20 40 60 80 100
Age (days)

Figure 1. Compressive strength development of concrete

544 Sun-Woo Kim et al.

Table 2. Summary of compressive strength

Compressive strength (MPa)

Specimen
1 day 7 days 28 days 91 days
OPC 12.59 32.77 42.81 43.90
FA20 11.05 42.64 53.27 55.36
BS50 2.55 24.27 39.00 47.16
BS65SF5 5.20 29.92 38.09 42.53

For a mean temperature of 20°C and curing in accordance with EN 12390 [11]
the compressive strength of concrete at various ages fcm (t) may be estimated from
following Eqs. (1) and (2);

𝑓𝑐𝑚 (𝑡) = 𝛽𝑐𝑐 (𝑡)𝑓𝑐𝑚 (1)

with
28 1/2
𝛽𝑐𝑐 (𝑡) = exp {𝑠 [1 − ( ) ]} (2)
𝑡

where;
fcm(t) is the mean concrete compressive strength at an age of t days
fcm is the mean compressive strength at 28 days according to Table 3.1[10]
βcc(t) is a coefficient which depends on the age of the concrete (t)
t is the age of the concrete in days
s is a coefficient which depends on the type of cement
= 0.20 for rapid hardening high strength cements (R) (CEM 42.5R, CEM 52.5)
= 0.25 for normal and rapid hardening cements (N) (CEM 32.5R, CEM 42.5)
= 0.38 for slow hardening cements (S) (CEM 32.5)

In this study, to evaluate the strength development of concrete with age, the age
coefficient, βcc(t) was compared with the test results. The compressive strength at
each age of concrete was normalized by the relevant 28-day-compressive strength.
Figure 2 presents the comparison of compressive strength development by testing
with that by Eq. (2). Among the variables in Eq. (2), the binder type coefficient, s
was controlled to fit the predictive curve to the compressive test result. As shown
in Figures 2(a) and 2(b), the test results were well-predicted when 0.25 was used
as s for OPC and FA20 specimens. However, as shown in Figures 2(c) and 2(d),
0.60 and 0.40 were respectively used as s for OPC and FA20 specimen; this means
that the GGBS and SF are slow hardening binders resulting in lower early-strength
of concrete. It should be noticed that the predictive results for OPC and FA20
specimens are well-fitted with the test results at all ages while the 7-day
compressive strengths of BS50 and BS65SF5 are underestimated by the predictive
equation. It may be proven that the target strength of mineral-admixtured concrete
incorporating GGBS or SF should be a compressive strength at 91 days rather than
that at 28-day.
Effect of mineral admixture 545

1,4 1,4
s = 0.25 s = 0.25
1,2 1,2
Age coefficient, βcc (t)

Age coefficient, βcc (t)

1,0 1,0

0,8 0,8

0,6 0,6

0,4 0,4
OPC FA20
0,2 EC2 0,2 EC2
0,0 0,0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Age (days) Age (days)

(a) OPC (b) FA20

1,4 1,4
s = 0.60 s = 0.40
1,2 1,2
Age coefficient, βcc (t)

Age coefficient, βcc (t)

1,0 1,0

0,8 0,8

0,6 0,6

0,4 0,4
BS50 BS65SF5
0,2 EC2 0,2 EC2
0,0 0,0
0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100
Age (days) Age (days)

(c) BS50 (d) BS65SF5

Figure 2. Comparison of test results and predictive equation

4 Conclusion
In this study, the compressive strength development of MAC was evaluated by
testing and comparison with the predictive equation in Eurocode 2. The test results
showed that the MAC exhibited a slower strength development than PC based
concrete, but the later strength of MAC was improved. These strength development
characteristics of MAC were predicted by controlling the binder type coefficient,
and the analytical results shows that current equation for compressive strength
development of PC based concrete is not proper for predicting strength of MAC
because the current equation uses 28-day compressive strength as a standard target
strength. Therefore, it is referred that the standard target strength should be a
compressive strength at 91 days when mineral admixtures are used as binder for
concrete mixture.

Acknowledgements. This work was supported by Nuclear Research &

Development of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning
(2011T00200161) grant funded by the Korea government Ministry of Knowledge
Economy and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the
Korea government (MEST) (No.2012R1A1A1005058).
546 Sun-Woo Kim et al.

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Received: April 6, 2015; Published: May 22, 2015