The effect of different particle size of steel slag as filler in concrete

Abstract

Manufacturing of Ordinary Portland Cement(OPC) will produces high consumption of energy and carbon dioxide emission. This study is to produce a concrete that uses steel slag as cement replacement. 20% of steel slag and 80% of OPC were used in the concrete design with water cement ratio of 0.5. The replacement of cement by using steel slag gives the concrete better physical and mechanical properties in term of high compressive strength and low water absorption. Besides that, the different particle size of steel slag used explained that the smaller the particle size, the bigger the surface area and the higher is the rate of hydration, as more surface area is available for chemical reaction. Filling of voids between coarse and fine aggregates helped to increase the mechanical properties of the concrete. Five main particle sizes used in this study is 150μm, 300μm, 425μm, 600μm and 1.18mm. Result show that the strength of concrete increase directly proportionally to the size of steel slag particle. In density test, it shows that denser concrete will have higher compressive strength. Besides that, the smaller the particle size of steel slag, the bigger is the surface for hydration, the less dense the concrete and the higher is the water absorption.