Development of high performance sustainable optimized fiber reinforced geopolymer concrete and prediction of compressive strength

Geopolymer concrete is the sustainable building material that can be used as an alternative for cement concrete. There are several factors that affect the property of geopolymer concrete such as type of binder material used, molarity of activator solution and curing condition. The frailty of practical application of geopolymer concrete lies in its brittle nature. The main objective of this work focuses towards the synthesis of high impact strength fiber reinforced geopolymer concrete by optimizing various factors that affect its strength and reduce its brittleness. The novelty of the work lies in the approach of augmentation of high modulus glass fibers over the optimized Geopolymer concrete. In the current investigation, extensive experimental works were conducted to optimize the molarity of alkaline solution, utilization of Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag and glass fiber in geopolymer concrete under different curing condition. Further Microstructural investigation through Scanning Electron Microscopic analysis and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy analysis was carried over to understand the microstructure of the geopolymer matrix. An exhaustive and meticulous discussion part is included to elaborate the influence of molarity, curing condition, Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag utilization and incorporation of fibers in to the geopolymer matrix. Analytical Investigation though Artificial Neural Network has been performed to predict the compressive strength of the fiber reinforced geopolymer concrete based on three different input conditions. This study reported the optimum molarity of sodium hydroxide as 13M and optimum utilization of GGBS slag as 100 percent under ambient curing and 20 percent under heat curing. Further the work reported significant increase of about ten times in the energy absorption capacity and considerable decrease over the brittleness of the geopolymer concrete with the utilization of glass fiber. This research work could pave way for the development of high performance sustainable geopolymer concrete under ambient curing condition enabling the application of application of geopolymer concrete in industry that demand high impact strength materials such as machine foundations, pile caps, spill ways. This concrete could pave way for replacing conventional concrete in all its existing applications. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.