Optimizing the durability and service life of self-consolidating concrete containing metakaolin using statistical analysis

This paper utilizes the statistical design of experiments approach to optimize the mixture design of self-consolidating concrete (SCC) incorporating metakaolin (MK). The factors studied were total binder content, percentage of MK, water-to-binder ratio, and curing conditions. The results obtained from the developed statistical models were exploited to determine the most significant factors affecting the chloride permeability and the expected service life (calculated using Fick's second law of diffusion) of the tested mixtures. The developed models were also used to optimize the level of each response variable to minimize the chloride permeability, and to maximize the expected service life of the developed high performance SCC mixture. The results yielded an optimum SCC mixture with MK which achieved the lowest chloride permeability compared to counterpart SCC mixtures containing fly ash, slag, and silica fume. The results also showed that MK replacement proved to be the most significant variable affecting the chloride permeability, decline of permeability over time, and the service life of the tested mixtures. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.