Effect of Duration of Heat Curing on the Artificially Produced Fly Ash Aggregates

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on the production of artificial fly ash aggregates through the process of pelletization. The alkaline solutions like sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide was used to activate the fly ash. The alkaline solution contains 4.5% of Na<inf>2</inf>O, Si<inf>2</inf>O/Na<inf>2</inf>O ratio of 0.3 and 20% of water content with respect to mass of fly ash were used as binder in the production of fly ash geopolymer aggregates. The experiments were conducted by varying with different parameters. Curing of artificial fly ash aggregates was done with ambient temperature and heat curing (60 to 80 °C). Six levels of duration of heat curing were considered for this study. The optimum temperature and duration of curing is essential in geopolymerization reaction to achieve good characteristics of the produced aggregates. Grey relation analysis was performed to identify the effect of heat curing. Test results and grey relation analysis shows that the characteristics of the artificial produced fly ash aggregates has significantly improved with increase in temperature and duration of oven curing. © 2018 Institute of Physics Publishing. All rights reserved.