Flexural Behaviour of Reinforced High Performance Concrete Beams with Manufactured Sand and Silica Fume

T.Shanmugapriya , Dr.R.N.Uma, U. Gayathri

Abstract

High Performance Concrete (HPC) is defined as a concrete that meets special performance and uniformity requirements that can not always be achieved routinely by using conventional materials and normal mixing, placing and curing practices. Most application of HPC has been in tall buildings, bridges and offshore structures. An experimental investigation was carried out to understand the structural behavior of reinforced concrete HPC beams of size 1800mm (length) x 150mm  (width) x 200mm (depth).The ordinary Portland cement was partially replaced with silica fume by 5%, 10% and 12.5%. The natural sand was completely replaced with Manufactured Sand (M-Sand) with all percentage of silica fume replacement. The concrete used in this investigation was proportioned to target a mean strength of 60 MPa and designed as per ACI 211.4R-08.This paper presents the load deflection characteristics of HPC concrete made with silica fume and M-Sand compared with conventional concrete mix. Maximum ultimate load carrying capacity and the least deflection is obtained for the mix prepared by partial replacement of cement with 10% silicafume & natural sand by 100% M-Sand.The mineral fillers in M- Sand and silica fume increased the flexural stiffness of HPC beam. The test results showed that it is possible to produce HPC using M-Sand with silica fume.