Optimization of ferrochrome slag as coarse aggregate in concretes

The alarming rate of depletion of natural stone based coarse aggregates is a cause of great concern. The coarse aggregates occupy nearly 60-70% by volume of concrete being produced. Research efforts are on to look for alternatives to stone based coarse aggregates from sustainability point of view. Response surface methodology (RSM) is adopted to study and address the effect of ferrochrome slag (FCS) replacement to coarse aggregate replacement in the ordinary Portland cement (OPC) based concretes. RSM involves three different factors (ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) as binder, flyash (FA) as binder, and FCS as coarse aggregate), with three different levels (GGBS (0, 15, and 30%), FA (0, 15, and 30%) and FCS (0, 50, and 100%)). Experiments were carried out to measure the responses like, workability, density, and compressive strength of FCS based concretes. In order to optimize FCS replacement in the OPC based concretes, three different traditional optimization techniques were used (grey relational analysis (GRA), technique for order of preference by similarity (TOPSIS), and desirability function approach (DFA)). Traditional optimization techniques were accompanied with principal component analysis (PCA) to calculate the weightage of responses measured to arrive at the final ranking of replacement levels of GGBS, FA, and FCS in OPC based concretes. Hybrid combination of PCA-TOPSIS technique is found to be significant when compared to other techniques used. 30% GGBS and 50% FCS replacement in OPC based concrete was arrived at, to be optimal.