APPLICATION OF NANO TECHNOLOGY IN SELF COMPACTING CONCRETE-A REVIEW

Although self compacting concrete has been successfully used in Japan and European there has been some reluctance to employ it in Australia and as a consequence it has suffered very little development with local materials. The composition of concrete could sometime consist of more than one type of cement (i.e. special cement, like ultra-fine alumina cement) together with additions (normal, light weight and special types, fillers), admixtures such as super plasticizer (SP), air entertainers and viscosity modifying agents. The use of industrial byproducts, such as KA, SF, and QD offers a low-priced solution to the environmental problem of depositing industrial waste. Nano technology is a vast field with tremendous number of applications in every field. Recently, there are abundant applications of nanotechnology in Construction field. Cement mortar, a composite material, is a Nano structured material that ages over time. It is composed of an amorphous phase, nanometer to micrometer size crystals bounded by water. The use of Nano materials such as Fe2O3, TiO2, Silica, ZrO2, etc., acts as Nanofillers, decreases the harmful voids and increases the permeability of the concrete. It also acts as nucleation site, increases the rate of C-S-H gel formation, which increases the amount of crystalline CA (OH)2 particularly at an early stage, which increases strength.