title: Mechanical characteristics of hardened concrete with different mineral admixtures: a review.
abstract: The available literature identifies that the addition of mineral admixture as partial replacement of cement improves the microstructure of the concrete (i.e., porosity and pore size distribution) as well as increasing the mechanical characteristics such as drying shrinkage and creep, compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, and modulus of elasticity; however, no single document is available in which review and comparison of the influence of the addition of these mineral admixtures on the mechanical characteristics of the hardened pozzolanic concretes are presented. In this paper, based on the reported results in the literature, mechanical characteristics of hardened concrete partially containing mineral admixtures including fly ash (FA), silica fume (SF), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), metakaolin (MK), and rice husk ash (RHA) are discussed and it is concluded that the content and particle size of mineral admixture are the parameters which significantly influence the mechanical properties of concrete. All mineral admixtures enhance the mechanical properties of concrete except FA and GGBS which do not show a significant effect on the strength of concrete at 28 days; however, gain in strength at later ages is considerable. Moreover, the comparison of the mechanical characteristics of different pozzolanic concretes suggests that RHA and SF are competitive.
authors.affiliation: Civil Engineering Department, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi 57270, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Tehmina
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7360-0440
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ayub
authors.affiliation: Urban Engineering Department, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi 57270, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Sadaqat Ullah
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3845-541X
authors.initials: SU
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Civil Engineering Department, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro 76062, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Fareed Ahmed
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3027-1760
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Memon
mesh_terms: D003252:Construction Materials / Q000032:analysis*; D004548:Elasticity; D008903:Minerals / Q000737:chemistry*; D013718:Tensile Strength
chemical_list: D008903:Minerals