%0 Journal Article
%T Impact of Blending on Strength Distribution of Ambient Cured Metakaolin and Palm Oil Fuel Ash Based Geopolymer Mortar
%A Taliat Ola Yusuf
%A Mohammad Ismail
%A Jamilu Usman
%A Ainul H. Noruzman
%J Advances in Civil Engineering
%D 2014
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2014/658067
%X This paper investigates the influence of blending of metakaolin with silica rich palm oil fuel ash (POFA) on the strength distribution of geopolymer mortar. The broadness of strength distribution of quasi-brittle to brittle materials depends strongly on the existence of flaws such as voids, microcracks, and impurities in the material. Blending of materials containing alumina and silica with the objective of improving the performance of geopolymer makes comprehensive characterization necessary. The Weibull distribution is used to study the strength distribution and the reliability of geopolymer mortar specimens prepared from 100% metakaolin, 50% and 70% palm and cured under ambient condition. Mortar prisms and cubes were used to test the materials in flexure and compression, respectively, at 28 days and the results were analyzed using Weibull distribution. In flexure, Weibull modulus increased with POFA replacement, indicating reduced broadness of strength distribution from an increased homogeneity of the material. Modulus, however, decreased with increase in replacement of POFA in the specimens tested under compression. It is concluded that Weibull distribution is suitable for analyses of the blended geopolymer system. While porous microstructure is mainly responsible for flexural failure, heterogeneity of reaction relics is responsible for the compression failure. 1. Introduction Concrete made from Portland cement is described as quasi-brittle with features strongly influenced by mechanical and chemical behavior of micro- to mesostructures when subjected to stresses [1]. The fracture behavior is thus affected by the existence of microdefects in the form of microcracks, voids, and weak heterogeneous zones in the material [1¨C3]. Consideration of hardened concrete fracture behavior is therefore paramount in structural safety assessment [4]. The random nature of cracks or flaws brings about scatter in strength and therefore lends support for statistical consideration. Normal distribution has been commonly used to describe the strength behavior of concrete materials. The use of the normal distribution is appealing because of its simplicity. However, it is limited by parameter prescription of scale factor extending to negative values even though the strength at fracture of a material cannot take on values less than zero [5]. Furthermore, the chance of obtaining the crack size greater than critical crack increases with volume of test specimens and this volume dependency is responsible for a decrease in the mean strength as the volume of specimen increases
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ace/2014/658067/