Mechanical Characteristics of High Compressive Strength Geopolymers Considering Chemical and Physical Properties of Binders

Abstract

Geopolymers are composite hard materials made by mixing industrial by-products such as fly ash, steel making slags and garbage melting furnace slags as binders and alkaline liquid activators such as NaOH and sodium silicate as activator. The compressive strength of geopolymer q_u is considered as a function of w which is the weight ratio of activator and binder and η which is the weight ratio of liquid NaOH and sodium silicate. The maximum compressive strength q_umax was defined as the maximum value among the peak values of q_u which were obtained for various values of w and η. This research discussed the chemical and mechanical characteristics, and the prediction method for the q_umax by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) observation of binders.