Compressive and Bonding Strength of Fly Ash Based Geopolymer Mortar

Geopolymer which is produced by synthesizing aluminosilicate source materials with an alkaline activator solution promotes sustainable and excellent properties of binder. The purpose of this paper is to determine the optimum binder to sand ratio of geopolymer mortars based on mechanical properties. In order to optimize the formulation of geopolymer mortar, various binder to sand ratios (0.25, 0.33, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0) are prepared. The investigation on the effect of sand inclusion to the compressive and bonding strength of geopolymer mortar is approached. The experimental results show that the bonding strength performance of geopolymer is also depends on the various binder to sand ratio, where the optimum ratio 0.5 gives a highest strength of 12.73 MPa followed by 12.35 MPa, which corresponds the ratio 1.0 for geopolymer, while the compared value of OPC bonding strength is given by 9.3 MPa. The morphological structure at the interface zone is determined by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the homogenous bonding between geopolymer and substrate can be observed. Fly ash based geopolymers reveal a new category of mortar which has high potential to be used in the field of concrete repair and rehabilitation.