Manufactured sand effect on flexural behavior of geopolymer RCC structural elements

The production of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) emits CO2 into the atmosphere. Fly ash, which is a by-product obtained from coal industry, is introduced to replace OPC used in the concrete. It is rich in silicate gel with alkaline solution to produce good concrete. Increase in fly ash fineness enhances the compressive strength and reduces the porosity. In the modern society, the urbanization process has extensively exploited sand from rivers and mountains. The paper presents the flexural behavior of Geopolymer Concrete (GPC) beams and columns of M 30 grade replaced by manufactured sand as replacement of river sand and compares the same with control cement concrete elements and geopolymer concrete elements. The beam size of 150*150 mm and column size 150*150 is cast over an effective span of 1,200 mm and tested for failure under static loads. The load displacement responses and stress-strain analyss of the GPC structural elements with manufactured sand are obtained and compared with regular GPC and conventional concrete elements. The results imply that there is an increase in flexural strength, service load and peak load of GPC elements with manufactured sand.