A STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF RICE HUSK ASH AS A PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF CEMENT IN CONCRETE

Abstract

Increasing in the demand of conventional construction materials and the need for providing a sustainable growth in the construction field has prompted the designers and developers to opt for ‘alternative materials’ feasible for use in construction. Bangladesh, being an agro-based nation, has plenty of RHA production as an agricultural byproduct. Previous studies reported that almost 400 pounds of rice husk can be gotten after processing around 2000 pounds of paddy. In this study, summarizes the work on the properties of Rice Husk Ash (RHA) when used as partial replacement for cement. Compressive quality of 100x200 mm concrete cylinder has been decided to see the variety in quality of concrete with the partial replacement of cement by RHA. After a thorough review on related available research articles, Cement to RHA substitution are chosen as 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% by the weight of cement and after that compared with the controlled concrete test. 0% replacement of cement served as the control concrete. Curing periods of 7, 28 days are considered for all the combinations and a consistent blending proportion of 1:1.5:3 for cement, fine aggregate & coarse aggregate, respectively, and a w/c ratio of 0.45, is chosen. RHA is collected from a rice process in the Dhaka area. Results depict that with the consideration of RHA as partial binders, the quality of concrete expectedly decreases. It has been spotted that the compressive strength and the tensile strength of hardened concrete is decreased with the increase of cement replacement with RHA. It is observed that expansion of up to 10% RHA to cement by weight (curing period 28 days) yields about the required compressive quality and the tensile quality. The tendency of compressive strength and tensile strength of concrete (replacement with RHA) is increasing with the curing time increase. It is recommended that further studies be carried out to gather more facts about the suitability of partial replacement of cement with RHA in concrete