Abstract

A study on the utilization of fly ash in concrete

Author(s): Surabhi, Anil Kumar Chaudhary

In modern decades, the industrialization and urbanization are the two phenomena that are spreading all over the world. Apart from the requirement of these phenomena, there should also be investigation into their negative impacts on the worldwide environment and common life. Most important poor effect of these international processes has been the production of large quantities of industrial wastes. Therefore, the problems related with their safe management and dumping has turned into a major test to environmentalists and scientists. Another problem is the stress on land, materials and resources to sustain the developmental activities, including infrastructure. The thermal power plants produce considerably large quantities of solid byproduct namely fly ash. At present, the dumping of generated fly ash is by either wet disposal or dry disposal. It is also widely used for a variety of construction materials. However, there is a requirement to address the problems encountered during the disposal or recycle fly ash in construction materials. An attempt has been made in this present paper to highlight utilization in construction activities by replacing sand by fly ash in concrete. The scope of this paper is restricted to fly ash fromthermal power plants. Fly ash is produced as a result of coal combustion in thermal power plants. Fly ash is defined as a heterogeneous mixture of amorphous and crystalline phases and is generally fine powdered ferro-alumino silicate material with Al, Ca, Fe, Na and Si as the predominant elements. Bottom ash and slag as well as fly ash generated from other industrial sources are beyond the scope of this paper.