Development and Evaluation of Fly Ash Sand Composite Materials with Additives

Abstract

The Coal production in India 2013-14 was 565.64 Million tons compared to 556.41 Million tons (MT) during the 2012-13. The coal deposit of India has high ash content of the order of 30 -45%, hence produces lot of ash when burnt. The use of fly ash has increased from 6.64 million ton in 1996-97 to a level of 99.62 million-ton in the year 2013-14. The use of fly ash is 57.63% during 2013-14. The harmless dumping of the fly ash is a major problem for the environment. Huge area required for the storage that are main challenges for sustainable development. A new invention and researches are going on for the bulk usage of fly ash. Now the use of fly ash in the bulk mode is applicable in the field of geotechnical engineering applications such that brick manufacturing, structural fills, filling of mines, production of embankments, construction of roads, haul roads etc. An effort has been made in this investigation to assess the potential utilization of fly ash composite material made by mixing of fly ash, sand, and cement or lime. In this report, a comparison study have been carried out with two additives, cement and lime in the fly ash sand mixture materials. The leading constituents of the composite are Fly Ash, Sand, and Cement or Lime. Different percentage of fly ash samples i.e. 85, 75, and 65 are taken with different percentages of cement or lime i.e. 3, 5, and 8 with sand of 12, 20 and 27% and their properties are determined. Various geotechnical experiments are carried out on the fly ash samples. Those are Brazilian Tensile Strength Test (BTS), Unconfined Compressive Strength Test (UCS), Direct Shear Strength Test (DSS) and Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity Test (UPV). These properties are determined at 0, 7, 14, 28, 56 and 90 days of curing period. Lime and cement % have maximum bearing on the fly ash composite material through with varying magnitude. Fly ash gains strength in the presence of additives