S. Raj - Department of Civil Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences(KITS), Coimbatore, India
P. Arulraj - Department of Civil Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences(KITS), Coimbatore, India
N. Anand - Department of Civil Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences(KITS), Coimbatore, India
K. Balamurali - Department of Civil Engineering, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences(KITS), Coimbatore, India
G. Gokul - Department of Physics, Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences(KITS), Coimbatore, India

Global warming is one of the severe environmental effects, faced by the current generation. Studies show that, Carbon di-oxide (CO۲) is the major cause for the global warming and is mainly due to huge production of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). Supplementary cementitious materials can reduce this effect by reducing the requirement materials instead of OPC for the construction purposes. Geopolymer Concrete (GPC) is a new generation concrete, which does not require OPC. In this study, Fly Ash (FA) was used to produce GPC. Various parameters are considered in the present study. Taguchi’s method is used for analyzing the parameters. An empirical relation is developed to predict the compressive strength of GPC based on the different parameters. Thirty-six mixes were casted to determine the effect of curing temperature, curing time, rest period, ratio of Alkaline Activator solutions (AAs), ratio of activators to FA, molarity of NaOH and replacement level of FA with OPC on the compressive strength. Contribution of each parameter was estimated by ANOVA. Results show that, addition of OPC had a significant effect on the compressive strength of GPC. The mix with ۲۰% OPC, ۱۴M NaOH, curing temperature of ۶۰oC, curing time of ۳۶hrs, rest period of ۴۸hrs, AAs to FA ratio ۰.۳ and ratio of alkaline solutions ۲.۵ was found to have the maximum compressive strength. A regression equation is developed to determine the compressive strength of GPC with respect to the parameters considered.

Geo-polymer Concrete, Taguchi method, Compressive strength, Sustainable material