Abstract:
Bottom ash, which is a byproduct of coal fired
thermal power plants has given rise to major environmental
impacts due to its potential hazardous effects. Through this
research, attempts were made to use bottom ash as a substitute
for river sand in producing foam concrete blocks. This will
further contribute to the reduction of excessive river sand
mining. In this research main focus was given to develop
lightweight concrete blocks incorporating bottom ash and
foaming agent. Experimental investigations were carried out by
varying bottom ash to cement ratio, water to cement ratio and
particle sizes of bottom ash in order to identify the potential of
applicability of bottom ash in producing foam concrete blocks.
Furthermore, in this study, wet method was used to generate
foam by using industrial foam generating machine. By
evaluating a range of properties such as compressive strength,
drying shrinkage, wetting expansion and water absorption, it
was found that the optimum bottom ash to cement ratio for foam
concrete is 0.75 which resulted in compressive strength of 3.8
MPa with dry density in the range of 700-850 kgm-3 which
satisfies the requirements of lightweight category masonry
blocks.
Citation:
I. Fonseka and A. Nanayakkara, "Development of Foam Concrete Blocks with Bottom Ash," 2020 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference (MERCon), 2020, pp. 90-95, doi: 10.1109/MERCon50084.2020.9185223.