Mechanical Properties of M30 Grade Concrete using Blast Furnace Aggregate- An Experimental Study

Cement concrete is the most widely used material for various constructions. Properly designed and prepared concrete results in good strength and durable properties. Even such well-designed and prepared concrete mixes under controlled conditions also have certain limitations because of which above properties of concrete are found to be inadequate for special situations and for certain special structures. Research for high strength and better performance characteristics of concrete are leading the researches for developing better structural concrete and new structural application techniques. New type of concrete have come in application in construction by using supplementary material like blast furnace aggregate for achieving better performance concrete than the normal concrete. Availability of mineral admixtures marked opening of a new era for designing concrete mix of higher and higher strength. As a result, the use of new mineral admixtures has considerably increased within the concrete industry. Lot of research is being carried on to find suitable coarse aggregate so that huge quantity of natural coarse aggregate needed to fulfill the increasing demand can be reduced, Thereby saving the rapid depletion of the natural resources i.e. rocks for coarse aggregate. Hence an attempt has been made in this investigation of partial replacement of Coarse aggregate with blast furnace aggregate. An experimental work was carried to know the various mechanical properties of M30 grade concrete replacing the natural coarse aggregate with Blast furnace aggregate. Cubes and cylinders were casted by partially replacing coarse aggregate with BFA at 10%, 20%, 30% and it was found that the compressive strength increased respectively by 15.70%,53.83% and 21.12% respectively. Split tensile strength was found to be same as M30 Conventional concrete.