Limestone-Calcined Clay (LC2) as a supplementary cementitious material for concrete

Abstract

In this work, limestone-calcined clay (LC2) is studied as an alternative supplementary cementitious material (SCM), combining two widely available resources – calcinated kaolinitic clay and limestone, to partially substitute portland clinker. The primary goal is to assess the potential of LC2 to produce moderate to high strength concretes with design compressive strengths of 20 to 50 MPa. For this purpose, 27 mixes with LC2 were prepared with a range of binder contents and water-binder ratios, and the performance was benchmarked against those of mixes having fly ash (PFA). In addition to the quantification of strength and concrete resistivity, life cycle assessment was performed for the concretes considering a typical situation in India. The efficiency of concretes made with LC2, PFA and ordinary portland cement (OPC) was analyzed using the energy intensity index (eics) and apathy index (A-index) as sustainability indicators. This framework establishes the sustainability potential of the LC2 with insights on the influence of strength on the indicators. It is concluded that the LC2 concretes with 45% replacement level, w/b≤0.45 and binder content lower than 400 kg/m3 possess the highest sustainability potential, among the concretes studied here.