Characterizations of high-performance concrete containing mineral additions

Abstract

This study aims to experimentally investigate the slump, compressive strengths (Cs) at 7 and
28-day of fifteen HPC combinations made from already-existing local materials in Algeria. After that,
establish statistical models based on the mix design modeling technique to examine the impact of
employing dune sand powder (DSP), as a supplementary cementitious material, both in binary and ternary
combinations with cement (PC) and ground blast-furnace slag (GBFS) on the HPCs characteristics. A four
level, three-parameter mixture design was implemented to develop models for the statistical variance of the
recorded experimental data and the JMP7 statistical program was employed to perform this analysis. For
all responses, models exhibit strong correlation coefficients (R2 ≥ 0.83). Replacing cement with GBFS
increases the slump. However, slump only remains good when the combinations have a low proportion of
DSP. At 7-day, the improvement in Cs can be attributed to the increasing proportion of DSP. In contrast,
results suggest the increasing percentage of GBFS in all systems causes a slight decrease of Cs. At 28-day,
it is evident that the use of GBFS alone resulted in a slight decrease in Cs, but when combined with PC,
GBFS increased Cs. In contrast, Cs is better when a low percentage of DSP is used. Optimal composition
(HPC14) with 5%GBFS offers the best compromise between the three studied characteristics.