AUTHOR=Shaikh Faiz Uddin Ahmed , Hosan Anwar TITLE=Effect of Nano Alumina on Compressive Strength and Microstructure of High Volume Slag and Slag-Fly Ash Blended Pastes JOURNAL=Frontiers in Materials VOLUME=6 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/materials/articles/10.3389/fmats.2019.00090 DOI=10.3389/fmats.2019.00090 ISSN=2296-8016 ABSTRACT=

This paper presents the effect of nano alumina (NA) on compressive strength and microstructure of cement paste containing high volume blast furnace slag (HVBFS) contents of 70, 80, and 90% as partial replacement of cement and combined blast furnace slag (BFS) and class F fly ash (FA) contents of 70 and 80% as partial replacement of cement. FA is used at 30% as partial replacement of BFS. NA contents are varied from 1 to 4% as partial replacement of BFS and BFS-FA. Results show that the addition of NA improves the compressive strength of high volume BFS and BFS-FA pastes by 2 to 16%. The compressive strength of paste containing 69% BFS, 30% cement, and 1% NA exceeded the compressive strength of control cement paste while the compressive strength of paste containing 77% BFS, 20% cement, and 3% NA is 1% lower than control cement paste. NA significantly reduced the large capillary pores of >0.1 microns of high volume BFS and BFS-FA pastes. No evidence of reduction of Ca(OH)2 in high volume BFS pastes is observed due to addition of NA, however, in high volume BFS-FA paste the Ca(OH)2 is reduced due to addition of NA. Increase in intensity peaks of CAH, Ettringite and CSH in X-ray diffraction analysis is observed in high volume BFS and BFS-FA pastes due to addition of NA, which coincides with the observed more dense microstructure of high volume BFS and BFS-FA pastes containing NA than those without NA.