Properties of Self-Consolidating Concrete Made with High Volumes of Supplementary Cementitious Materials

Abstract

This paper presents an extensive experimental study to develop a high-performance self-consolidating concrete containing high volumes of supplementary cementitious materials. A total of 20 concrete mixtures were developed and tested. Mixtures were designed to have up to 70% of portland cement replaced by cementitious materials such as class C and class F fly ash, slag, and silica fume. The properties of fresh concrete mixtures such as flowability, deformability, filling capacity, air content, and resistance to segregation were evaluated. Other properties such as permeability, unrestrained shrinkage, tensile strength, and compressive strength at various ages were also investigated. A critical analysis of the results obtained shows that a high-performance self-consolidating concrete can be developed using binary, ternary, or quaternary binders with up to 70% of cement replaced by fly ash, slag, and/or silica fume. Properties of such concrete mixtures are similar and sometimes superior to those of the control mixture made with 100% portland cement.