Computational study on lightweight concrete beam incorporating palm oil fuel ash (POFA) and mussel shell ash (MSA) as partial cement replacement

Abstract

Abstract The combination both palm oil fuel ash (POFA) and mussel shell ash (MSA) have a high potential in improving the foamed concrete strength at the same time reduce the cement usage. Instead of accommodating costly disposal cost process, this residue can be transform into other noble practice. Finite element analysis (FEA), a high-end computational analysis that applied in this studies as the alternative method in estimating the flexural behaviour of the foamed concrete beam in term of ultimate load, load-deflection profile and cracking failure distribution which completed by using ABAQUS. Therefore, a research was undertaken to construct a computational model of a foamed concrete beam integrating partial cement replacement with 20% POFA and 10% MSA. The aim of this research is to model the foamed concrete beam by ABAQUS software and to study the flexural behaviour of foamed concrete beam subjected to transverse load using finite element analysis. In terms of ultimate load, load deflection profile, and cracking, the flexural behaviour of a foamed concrete beam was observed and documented. Following that, validation was performed to compare the results of the experimental study in terms of ultimate load-deflection. The experimental and simulation findings differed somewhat, with an error of 5.34 percent and 10.80 percent for the control and POFA + MSA beam, respectively. From this study, it was proven that FEA utilising ABAQUS was capable of accurately predicting the flexural behaviour of structural components.