EFFECT OF SILICA FUME ON THE STRENGTH OF CEMENT MORTAR

Harjinder Singh, Shikha Bansal

Abstract: The replacement of sand/cement by certain percentage of silica fumes, resulted in the improvement in compressive strength of the mortar. Silica fumes to the highly pozzolanic materials because it consists essentially of silica in non- crystalline form with a high specific surface. It is used to improve the mechanical properties of the concrete. The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of silica fume on the compressive strength of mortar. Three proportions of mixes viz mix 1:3, mix 1:4 and mix 1:6 with different percentages of silica fumes replacement with sand/cement were used. The maximum increase in strength at the age of 28 days when sand is replaced by 15% of silica fume has been observed as 40% and in case of cement replaced with 15% of silica fume, the observed increase in compressive strength of mortar comes out to be 28%. A quantitative cost analysis shows that with the replacement of cement and sand by silica fume, the in cost is more when sand is replaced and it is less when cement is replaced.

Keywords: pozzolanic, silica fumes, non- crystalline, compressive strength

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2015.0402087