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An Experimental Study on Concrete Incorporating Wood Ash as Cement and Fine Aggregate Replacement

Concrete, the most used material on earth after water, contributes a great deal to the environment and the atmosphere. Concrete’s main ingredients are cement, sand and coarse aggregates. Cement alone is responsible for emitting a considerable amount of CO2, a total of 8% of the sum of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Sand and c oarse aggregate are also using up the topsoil and need to be conserved being mother earth’s valuable resources. Replacing any of the ingredients with recycled waste material reduces the carbon footprint of a virgin concrete mix. Coal fly ash is such a material that is used in concrete as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) for making concrete greener and more economic. However, coal industries being shut down for its pollution effect poses a new challenge in finding this most popular SCM in near future. Fly ash obtained from wood and lumber industries has a great potential for being a substitute for coal fly ash. The main challenge in using wood fly ash lies in the inconsistency of its properties for seasonal and source variations. Along with wood fly ash, wood bottom ash is a good option for being used as a replacement for sand. In this study, an experimental program was carried out to observe the fresh and mechanical properties of mortar and concrete using different percentages of wood fly ash and bottom ash as cement and sand replacement respectively. It was concluded that incorporating wood bottom ash did not have a significant effect on the properties of concrete, but a 30% replacement of cement with wood fly ash provided concrete with comparable compressive and tensile strength.

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