Strength Properties and Durability of Concrete Prepared From Sugarcane Bagasse Ash and Stone Dust

The gradual increase in construction activities worldwide utilizing significant amount of natural resources resulting in to scarcity of available resources. Alternative materials have been searched by different investigations which can fully or partially replace the naturally available materials in the construction industry. This paper deals with the results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) along with the elemental map of the concrete mixes for the microstructure observations and elemental compositions. It also aims to focus on the study of strength (St) and durability (Db) of concrete prepared by replacing a part of cement and sand, respectively by sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBa) and stone dust (SD). However, the study is limited to the concrete prepared with 10% optimum replacement of cement by SCBa with variable percentage (10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%) replacement of sand by stone dust. The tests on hardened concrete, which include compressive strength (Cs) and split tensile strength (Ts), were performed, and the results are presented. Durability study includes sulphate resistance test (SRt) in which the specimens were exposed to the respective chemical conditioning for 90 days and 180 days and the percentage loss in Cs with standard concrete were compared.