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A rapid furnace-based gravimetry test for assessing reactivity of supplementary cementitious materials

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Abstract

The feasibility of using a muffle furnace and a balance to determine the calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) consumption of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) in model systems was investigated. SCMs were mixed with Ca(OH)2 in an alkaline solution and, after mixing, the paste was sealed inside a 50 °C oven for curing until testing. The chemically bound water and Ca(OH)2 consumption were determined using the furnace at two fixed temperatures and the results were compared with those from the thermogravimetric analysis. The protocol of the furnace test was optimized based on thermogravimetric analysis results. While further testing is needed, initial results demonstrated the validity of the method, and suggest that it is able to differentiate inert, latent hydraulic, and pozzolanic materials using reactivity thresholds for the chemically bound water and the Ca(OH)2 consumption. This new test could be used for rapid and low-cost screening of novel SCMs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Transportation Research Board’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) for the Project NCHRP 10-104: Recommendations for Revision of AASHTO M 295 Standard Specification to Include Marginal and Unconventional Source Coal Fly Ashes. Support from the Miami Engineering Endowment (University of Miami) is gratefully acknowledged. The first author acknowledges financial support from the American Coal Ash Association Educational Foundation (ACAAEF) John Faber Scholarship, the ASTM International Katharine and Bryant Mather Scholarship, and the Environmental Research and Education Foundation (EREF) Scholarship. Boral Resources and SEFA Group are thanked for supplying some studied fly ashes. Ivan Diaz (Ozinga) and Maria Juenger (University of Texas Austin) are thanked for their insightful comments which have helped shape some of the authors thoughts on this topic. Andrea Tito, Jasmine Kaur, and Cynthia Jimenez (Titan America) are thanked for their assistance with x-ray fluorescence and laser diffraction testing. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors who are conducting this investigation and do not necessarily reflect those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, or the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the sponsors of the NCHRP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, 33146, USA

    Ying Wang & Prannoy Suraneni

  2. School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Sivakumar Ramanathan

  3. Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Lisa Burris

  4. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City, SD, 57701, USA

    Christopher R. Shearer

  5. Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A4, Canada

    R. Douglas Hooton

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  1. Ying Wang
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Wang, Y., Ramanathan, S., Burris, L. et al. A rapid furnace-based gravimetry test for assessing reactivity of supplementary cementitious materials. Mater Struct 55, 193 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-022-02029-0

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