Fresh and Mechanical Properties of Self-Consolidating Concrete Incorporating Silica Fume and Metakaolin

Self-consolidating concrete (SCC) has been gaining greater interest over the past decades with its excellent offerings of efficiency, beauty, and savings. Due to its high flow ability, resistance to bleeding, and non-segregating properties, SCC holds tremendous potential for use in the construction industry. SCC requires no vibration and can fill capacities, including the ones with even the most congested reinforcements. Since SCC can be obtained by incorporating supplementary cementing materials (SCMs) such as silica fume and metakaolin. It is crucial to develop and test different SCC mixtures with different volumes of SCMs to evaluate fresh and mechanical properties. Although silica fume is used in the production of SCC, the use of metakaoline in SCC is new. In this project, eleven SCC mixtures having different volumes of silica fume and metakaolin are developed. In addition, the influence of the above mentioned pozzolans (silica fume and metakaolin) on the fresh and mechanical properties are analyzed. Recommendations on fresh and mechanical properties of silica fume and metakaoline based SCC mixtures are also provided.