DURABILITY STUDIES OF GGBS AND METAKAOLIN BASED GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE

The objective of this research work was to produce a carbon dioxide emission free cementious material. The geopolymer concrete is such a vital and promising one. In this study, geopolymer is prepared from ‘Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag' (GGBS) a powder from grinding the byproduct of slag waste from blast furnace of steel plants and metakaolin from industry. The Alkaline liquids used in this study for the polymerization process are the solutions of sodium hydroxide (NaoH) and sodium silicate (Na2Sio3).A 8 Molarity and 10 Molarity solutions was taken to prepare the mix. The cube compressive strength was calculated for different mixes. The cube specimens are taken of size 150 mm x 150 mm x 150 mm. Ambient curing of concrete at room temperature was adopted. In total 180 cubes were casted for their compressive strength at age of 28 days respectively. The test data indicate that on exposure to 5% Sodium Sulphate, Sulphuric Acid and Sodium Chloride, the losses in weight, and strength of geopolymer concrete (GPC) are significantly much less than those for cement concrete. Thus the geopolymer concrete is considered to be an environmentally pollution free construction material