INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CIVIL AND STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Volume 5, No 3, 2015
© Copyright by the authors - Licensee IPA- Under Creative Commons license 3.0
Review article ISSN 0976 – 4399
Received on August 2014 Published on February 2015 296
Possible materials for producing Geopolymer concrete and its performance
with and without Fibre addition- A State of the art review
Alwis deva kirupa J P
1
, Sakthieswaran N
2
1- Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Ponjesly College of Engineering,
Nagercoil, India
2- Department of Civil Engineering, Regional center of Anna University, Tirunelveli, India
adkjp.civil@gmail.com
doi: 10.6088/ijcser.2014050028
ABSTRACT
Global warming is one of the most pronounced terms in this present century. Hence reducing
the greenhouse gas emissions, which is the reason behind global warming, is the need of the
hour and so efforts are urgently underway all over the world to develop environmentally
friendly construction materials, which make minimum utility of fast dwindling natural
resources and help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Five to eight percent of the world’s
manmade Greenhouse gas emissions are from the Cement industry itself. It is an established
fact that the green house gas emissions are reduced by 80% in Geopolymer concrete vis-a-vis
the conventional Portland cement manufacturing, as it does not involve carbonate burns. In
this connection, Geopolymers are showing great potential and several researchers have
critically examined the various aspects of their viability as binder system. Considerable
research has been carried out on development of Geopolymer concretes (GPCs), which
involve heat curing. A few studies have been reported on the use of such GPCs for structural
applications. Thus Geopolymer based Concrete is highly environment friendly and the same
time it can be made as high performance concrete. This paper presents a review of the
literature, outlining the various research approaches undertaken in an effort to check the
feasibility of geopolymer to Civil Engineering applications. The findings of these varying
approaches are compared, and the different strategies employed are compiled and discussed.
It is expected that this review will provide a key step in advancing the understanding of this
innovative construction material.
Key Words : Geopolymerisation, Fly Ash, Red Mud, Ground Granulated Blast Furnace slag
(GGBS), Activator Solution.
1. Introduction
Ordinary Portland cement has been a binder for Civil Engineering tasks for a long time. But
at present, there are many new issues branching from its ever increasing use. Cement
production consumes huge quantities of virgin materials, is energy-intensive, and leads to
high emission of the greenhouse gas CO2, which is the main reason behind Global warming.
Again, Sulphur dioxide emission also can be very high, depending upon the type of fuel used.
Installation of new cement plants is becoming increasingly capital-intensive. Finally, many
cement concrete structures have exhibited early distress and problems, which has an adverse
effect on the resource productivity of the industry. To overcome all such limitations, a new
cementitious composite called “Geopolymer” is evolved. The name geopolymer was coined
by a French Professor Davidovits in 1978 to represent a broad range of materials
characterized by networks of inorganic molecules. It is a type of inorganic polymer
composite, which has recently emerged as a prospective binding material based on novel