Design of Rigid Pavement by Self Cured Concrete Utilizing Coarse Fly Ash Aggregates and Curing Admixture

Abstract

Abstract In concrete industry, a huge amount of natural aggregates is used in the making of concrete every day. The environment is being exploited by mining for the gain of natural aggregates, resulting in an environmental instability in nature. As a result, an alternate source to substitute natural aggregates in concrete is required. A lot of waste materials have gain attention now a days into the concrete industry as a substitute to natural materials. Fly ash, a waste product of thermal power plants, meets the criterion for being utilised as an aggregate substitute in concrete because of its pozzolanic activity. Coarse fly ash is manufactured using a good manufacturing method and is light in weight. Keeping this into view, the impact of partial replacement of natural coarse aggregates with coarse fly ash aggregates produced using the colds bonded method is explored in this paper. The major focus of this study is on testing for flexural strength of self-cured concrete, as flexural strength is a key criterion for rigid pavement design. In this study, coarse fly ash aggregates are utilised in concrete in different proportions to substitute natural aggregates, and the optimal value for flexural strength is determined using a curing additive. The findings of this experiment indicated that when fly ash aggregates and curing additives were used optimally, the flexure strength improved, which is enough for the construction of rigid pavement as criteria fixed by Indian Standards.