Compressive Strength and Durability of Bamboo Leaf Ash Concrete

Substitution of Bamboo Leaf Ash (BLA) as a cement substitute is an upcoming research topic. The objective of this paper is to study the feasibility of calcined bamboo leaf ash as a partial substitute to cement and its effect on compressive strength, pozzolanic activity, sorptivity and porosity characteristics in hardened concrete. Cement was replaced with BLA with a percentage of 10% to 30% with a uniform increment of 5%. Fallen dry bamboo leaves burnt in open atmosphere were heated in a muffle furnace for 4 hours at 500°C to induce pozzolanic activity. The grade of concrete was taken in such a way that it will give a characteristic compressive strength of 20 MPa. The chemical composition of BLA was obtained by XRF analysis. The nature of BLA was assessed by XRD analysis and found to have an amorphous structure. The pozzolanic activity was ensured by ASTM lime test (ASTM C311 and ASTM C109). Other durability characteristics, like sorptivity and porosity, were performed as per ASTM guidelines (ASTM C1545 and ASTM C127) to assess the resistance of BLA concrete against sorption and the volume of voids. From the experiments conducted, it was understood that cement could be replaced with BLA till 15% with a little compromise in strength and durability characteristics and that this replacement was found to be an optimum one.