Setting time and standard consistency of quaternary binders: The influence of cementitious material addition and mixing

This paper presents three pozzolanic materials that were used to make quaternary binders, Granulated blast furnace slag, fly ash (PFA), metakaolin, and silica fume as partial replacement in quaternary binders with Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) to investigate the effect of standard consistency, initial and final setting times of quaternary paste. Experiments demonstrate that SF has greater influence on the standard consistency of the OPC–FA–SF–GGBS paste, as compare to FA and GGBs. Water requirement in the paste escalates, with increase in SF percentage level within the paste, owing to the high surface area. In case of GGBS, around 3–5% of reduction in water/binder ratio was recorded, whereas for SF, it was 10–12%. In quaternary OPC–FA–SF–GGBS pastes, increases in initial and final setting times at 5%, 7.5%, 10%, and 15% replacement of SF and GGBS were observed, whereas OPC–FA–SF–MK paste setting time shows an increase at 5% replacement of SF and MK with 20% and 70% replacement of FA and OPC, however, it starts decreasing between 7.5% and 15% replacement of SF and MK. The consistency of the quaternary binders increases with an increase in percentage of SF and MK. In general the effect of FA, SF, GGBS and MK reflects in the behavior of quaternary binders even though the performance of all three pozzolans behaves completely independent of each other.