Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137

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Construction and Building Materials

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Effect of very fine particles on workability and strength of concrete made

with dune sand
Fu Jia Luo a, Li He b, Zhu Pan a,⇑, Wen Hui Duan a, Xiao Ling Zhao a, Frank Collins a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
b
Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, VIC 3216, Australia

h i g h l i g h t s

 Sand to cement ratio can affect properties of dune sand concrete (DSC).
 Dune sand grain with size smaller than 175 lm (VFP) can affect the hydration.
 VFP increases strength of DSC due to nucleation and pozzolanic effects.
 DSC and river sand concrete have comparable engineering properties.
 Australian dune sand can be used as fine aggregates for making concrete.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents the study on the properties of concrete made with dune sand from Australian desert.
Received 31 January 2013 With constant water–cement ratio of 0.5, dune sand concrete (DSC) and the corresponding reference
Received in revised form 2 May 2013 samples (concrete made with river sand) were prepared with sand–cement (S/C) ratio ranging from
Accepted 5 May 2013
0.91 to 2.28. In comparison to river sand, dune sand possesses a higher amount of very fine particles
(VFPs) with grain size smaller than 175 lm. These VFPs are found to modify the properties of concrete
by different mechanisms depending on the level of S/C ratio. At low level of S/C ratio (S/C < 1.41), VFPs
Keywords:
can fill the porosities between cement pastes and aggregates and has no negative effect on workability
Very fine particles
Strength
and, the highest slump (105 mm) for DSC was found at S/C ratio of 1.18. Moreover, at low level of S/C ratio,
Elastic modulus the strength of DSC is comparable or even higher than that of river sand concrete (RSC); the higher
Workability strength of DSC can be attributed to the heterogeneous nucleation and pozzolanic effect brought by VFPs
Pozzolanic effect which enhances cement hydration. At high level of S/C ratio (S/C > 1.41), excessive VFPs absorb large
Nucleation effect quantities of water on their surface and lead to the reduction in workability for DSC. As a result, more
air bubbles are introduced during compaction, leading to higher air content in DSC compared to RSC.
The air bubbles increase porous space in cement paste and thereby reducing the strength of DSC.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction vitally important for making concrete in an environmentally

friendly manner. As one possible solution, the dune sand from des-
Concrete manufacturing requires a large amount fine aggregate ert regions is abundant in some parts of the world, especially some
which is generally natural sand exploited from river channel and Africa and Middle East countries. In those regions, there are also
floodplain [1]. However, with the ever-increasing demand of problems associated with increasing shortage of coarse sands tra-
aggregates due to the booming infrastructure development, river ditionally used in concrete. Therefore, if dune sand can be utilised,
mining has led to serious environmental impacts, including dust this situation will be somewhat ameliorated.
arising, riverbank erosion, shifting of river course, suspended- Due to the environmental benefits, the topic on cementitious
solids contamination and flooding, etc. [2]. Besides, the mining materials made with dune sand has aroused increasing interest.
activities can also lead to the loss of coastal ecosystem, damage During the past decade, a number of researches have been con-
to infrastructure (e.g. roads and bridges) and potential destruction ducted to study the characteristics of dune sand as well as the
of tourism archaeological site, etc. [3]. Under the circumstances, properties of cementitious materials incorporating it. Al Harthy
the use of alternative materials for replacing river sand becomes et al. [4] have investigated the properties of concrete made with
Sharkiya (Oman) dune sand which was partially introduced
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 0399051291 (10–100%) as fine aggregate. It was found that the optimum
E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. Pan). replacement ratio was around 50%, at which the concrete has its

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.05.005
132 F.J. Luo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137

best workability whilst the reduction in compressive strength was durability. This effect is principally dependent on the fineness of
less than 25%. Zhang et al. [5] have investigated the complete use materials and the amount of soluble amorphous silica in materials.
of dune sand as fine aggregate for making concrete. They have A recent study [16] on cement paste containing dune sand pow-
studied the performance of mortar and concrete made with Teng- der has identified the occurrence of pozzolanic reaction. This is fur-
geli (China) dune sand and attempted to improve the workability ther confirmed by Alhozaimy et al. [17] that autoclaved curing can
of dune sand concrete (DSC) by using superplasticizers. It was promote the pozzolanic reactivity of dune sand and therefore
found that the superplasticizer could improve not only compres- greatly increases the concrete strength. Therefore, when used to
sive strength but also workability of DSC. A recent research by make concrete, dune sand should not be merely considered as inert
Jin et al. [6] has explored the feasibility of using dune sand from fillers as normal fine aggregate but rather as an active component
Maowusu sandy land (China) in high-strength concrete and a com- due to its pozzolanic reactivity and the heterogeneous nucleation
pressive strength in excess of 65 MPa was reported. The above effect. In this respect, the amount of VFP plays an important role
authors concluded that the dune sand can be used in making con- in optimising the properties of concrete made with dune sand,
crete for structural application. Besides, dune sand concrete also which has received little attention.
provides competent performance to other end-use applications. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the engineering
Wang et al. [7] and Qin et al. [8] have investigated the mechanical properties of DSC with various VFP content. The investigated prop-
properties of concrete-filled tube made with dune sand (in China); erties include air content, workability, compressive strength, ten-
results showed that the dune sand concrete-filled tube had higher sile strength and elastic modulus. Also, it is worth mentioning
flexural strength than that made with river sand. Khay et al. [9] that the dune sand used in this study is red dune sand from central
have examined the feasibility of using dune sand concrete for Australia for the following reasons: (1) dune sand from different
pavement application. The sand was from Tunisian Sahara regions can exhibit quite different properties and there is no previ-
(Tunisia). It was found that the mixing of 60% dune sand and 40% ous research on the use of Australia dune sand in concrete and (2)
crushed sand as fine aggregate produced competent concrete for desert fields cover 40% of mainland Australia and are widely spread
pavement application. around the central continent, which provides abundant and easily
As discussed above, various properties of concrete made with available dune sand. Moreover, construction sites in central
dune sand from different desert regions have been investigated Australia are far from aggregates production quarries, making it
in previous studies and it was concluded that dune sand may pro- uneconomical for aggregate transporting. Therefore, the results ob-
vide a readily available alternative material for use as fine aggre- tained in the current research also provide a guideline for the use
gate in concrete. However, the results from previous studies of dune sand in concrete whenever suitable sand materials are not
show a possible degradation in compressive strength when dune economically available in these areas.
sand is completely used as fine aggregate in concrete [4,6]. This
is generally attributed to the poor gradation of dune sand, which
2. Experimental program
makes it different from normally-used sand for making concrete.
In general, dune sand consists of a considerable amount of very 2.1. Materials
fine particles (VFP). Typically 25% by weight of grains in dune sand
are smaller than 150 lm; in contrast, this fraction is generally less In this study, ASTM C150 Type I Ordinary Portland cement was used for all the
concrete mixtures. The chemical compositions of cement were analysed by X-ray
than 6% as specified in ASTM C33 for fine aggregate used in
Fluorescence (XRF) as shown in Table 1.
concrete. Crushed basalt with size ranged from 2.36 to 12.5 mm was used as coarse
It is interesting to note that VFP is also a major component in aggregate. The measurement of bulk specific gravity (Gsb), surface-saturated-dry
mineral admixtures such as silica fume and fly ash. These pozzola- (SSD) bulk specific gravity (Gsb,SSD), apparent specific density (Gsa) and the water
nic mineral admixtures have been used as a partial substitution for absorption on coarse aggregates were performed in accord-dance with ASTM
C127-88 as shown in Table 2. The grain size distribution and other physical proper-
Portland cement for many years. The effects of these admixtures on
ties of coarse aggregate are shown in Fig. 1 and Table 2, respectively.
properties of concrete have been extensively studied [10,11]. In Two types of natural sands, namely desert sand (DS) and river sand (RS), were
general, these admixtures present binding activity because they used as fine aggregates. The selected DS was referred to as red dune sand from cen-
can enhance cement hydration. Two major effects are observed tral Australia as previously mentioned and the NS was commonly-used sand from
local supplier for casting reference concrete. The measurement of bulk specific
on enhancement of cement hydration when these mineral admix-
gravity, SSD bulk specified gravity, apparent specific density and the water absorp-
tures are used in cementitious materials [12–15]. tion on fine aggregates were performed in accordance with ASTM C128-12 as
The first effect is heterogeneous nucleation which is a physical shown in Table 2. Sieving analysis was performed in accordance with ASTM
process leading to a chemical activation of the hydration of ce- C136-06 and the grading curves, fineness modulus, coefficient of uniformity and
ment. It is related to the nucleation of hydrates on foreign mineral average grain size were determined as shown Fig. 1 and Table 2 respectively. The
surface area of fine aggregates was determined by B.E.T. Nitrogen Adsorption tech-
particles, which catalyses the nucleation process by reducing the
nique in accordance with ASTM D5604 and the results are presented in Table 2. The
energy barrier. Qualitatively, if the surface of the solid substrate chemical compositions of dune sand and river sand were analysed by X-ray Fluores-
matches well with the crystal, the interfacial energy between the cence (XRF) as shown in Table 1.
two solids is smaller than the interfacial energy between the crys-
tal and the solution, and nucleation may take place at a lower sat-
Table 1
uration ratio on a solid substrate surface than in pore solution
Chemical composition of cement and fine aggregates.
without mineral admixture. The mineral powder used does not
have to be reactive itself since its principal function is to provide Constituent Cement (%) DS (%) NS (%)
nucleation sites for hydrates. This effect becomes significant for SiO2 19.9 94.8 96.7
VFP as the decrease in particle size favours nucleation. Al2O3 4.7 2.00 1.05
The second effect is pozzolanic effect which is a chemical pro- Fe2O3 3.4 0.66 0.56
K2O 0.5 0.34 0.12
cess leading to the increase in compressive strength. The mineral Na2O 0.2 0.06 0.12
admixtures having pozzolanic activity will, in finely divided form CaO 63.9 0.23 0.08
and in the presence of water, react chemically with calcium MgO 1.3 0.11 –
hydroxide at ordinary temperature to form additional calcium sil- SO3 2.6 – –
Cl – – –
icate hydrates. These reaction productions fill in pores and result in
Loss on ignition 3.0 0.83 0.29
a refining of the pore structure leading to improved strength and
 F.J. Luo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137 133

Table 2 for reference purpose. Water–cement ratio (w/c) was controlled at 0.5 by weight. All
Physical properties of aggregates. aggregates were used in their saturated surface dry condition and all concrete spec-
imens were cast without admixture.
Aggregate properties Coarse aggregate Fine aggregate
DS NS
2.3. Casting and testing
Bulk specific gravity 2.820 2.456 2.428
SSD bulk specific gravity 2.883 2.581 2.540 The raw materials were mixed by a conventional constant-speed mixer in
Apparent specific gravity 2.910 2.720 2.652 accordance with ASTM C192. Slump was measured immediately after the mixing
Water absorption (%) 1.20 3.92 3.44 in accordance with ASTM C172. Air content (by pressure method) and specified
Fineness modulus – 1.009 2.158 gravity of freshly-mixed concrete was determined using concrete air meter in
Coefficient of uniformity – 2.131 2.885 accordance with ASTM C231. For each mix, a number of cylinders with 100-mm
Average grain size (mm) 10.810 0.244 0.710 diameter and 200-mm height were cast in pre-oiled steel moulds. Specimens were
B.E.T. surface area (m2/kg) – 280 960 demoded after 24 h and cured in lime bath. The mechanical properties of hardened
concrete including uniaxial compressive strengths, elastic modulus and tensile
splitting strength were determined at the age of 28 days in accordance with ASTM
C39, ASTM C469 and ASTM C496, respectively. Results were taken as the average of
three measurements.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Workability

Slump test was performed to evaluate the workability of fresh

concrete. The measured slump is then plotted against its sand–
cement (S/C) ratio as shown in Fig. 2. In the current research, as a
constant of water–cement ratio of 0.5 was used for all mixtures,
the higher the S/C ratio is, the higher and the sand–water ratio
(S/W) will be. The corresponding S/W ratio is also labelled in
Fig. 2 (see the top horizontal axis). Furthermore, the data is
grouped accordingly to sand–aggregates (S/A) ratios which repre-
Fig. 1. Grading curves of fine and coarse aggregate.
sent different aggregate skeleton structures. The results show a
general trend that, for a given S/A ratio, the slump decrease with
As evident from Tables 1 and 2, DS and NS have similar chemical compositions increasing S/C ratio (or decreasing amount of mixing water in mix-
and physical properties. The major differences between these two types of sands ture), regardless of the type of fine aggregate. It is noted that, for
are in their gradation and grain sizes (Fig. 1). The NS has a continuous grading with
both DSC and RSC, the highest slump was observed in the mixture
Coefficient of uniformity (Cu) of 2.88 while DS has a more uniform gradation with Cu
of 2.13. The DS is superfine sand with fineness modulus of 1.01, which is more than having S/C ratio of 1.18 (or S/W ratio of 2.36) with S/A ratio of 0.30,
twice as much as for NS. Also, DS does not meet the grading requirement for fine which was not the one having highest water content. The possible
aggregate specified in ASTM C33 and AS 2758.1. Moreover, DS has an average and reason for this is described as follow.
maximum grain size of 0.244 mm and 1.18 mm, respectively, while for NS, they According to Wang et al. [18] the mixing water exists in the
were 0.710 mm and 4.75 mm, respectively.
Furthermore, although there is no contamination of dune sand with chlorides or
forms of free layer water, adsorpted layer water and filling water.
sulphates, organic impurity due to decayed vegetation exists which makes LOI in The different forms of water play different roles in contribution
dune sand slightly higher than in river sand as seen in Table 1. This may affect to workability. Free layer water makes the solid particles separate
the hydration reaction as well as durability of concrete and requires further each other and thus contributes to workability. The adsorpted
research.
layer water is very close to the surface of solid. Due to the adsorp-
tion of the solid surface to water molecule, this part of water will
2.2. Mix proportions
be restrained by solid particle and is not able to move freely. As
a result, this water makes no contribution to workability. The
The amount of VPF in mixture was manipulated by varying sand–aggregate filling water only fills into space among solid particles and makes
(S/A) ratios and aggregate–cement ratios (A/C) in three different levels respectively,
i.e. S/A = 0.23, 0.3, 0.42 and A/C = 3.94, 4.69, 5.44. In such way, a total of nine con-
crete mixtures were designed as shown in Table 3. The resulting sand–cement (S/
C) ratios are accordingly ranged from 0.91 to 2.28 which cover the typical range
for normal purpose concrete; wherein the lower level of S/C represent a rich prac-
tical mixture and the higher level represents a lean mixture used for concrete filling.
In this study, RSC samples with identical mix proportions were also cast and tested

Table 3
Mix proportions.

Code S/A A/C S/C Density (kg/m3)

DSC RSC
No. 1 0.23 3.94 0.91 2539.2 2526.1
No. 2 0.23 4.69 1.08 2565.4 2568.6
No. 3 0.23 5.44 1.25 2614.4 2594.8
No. 4 0.30 3.94 1.18 2535.9 2545.8
No. 5 0.30 4.69 1.41 2555.0 2590.0
No. 6 0.30 5.44 1.63 2552.3 2581.7
No. 7 0.42 3.94 1.65 2477.1 2493.5
No. 8 0.42 4.69 1.97 2493.5 2535.9
No. 9 0.42 5.44 2.28 2539.2 2539.2
Fig. 2. Slump versus sand/water ratio.
134 F.J. Luo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137

no contribution to the workability as well. It is noted that different

forms of water can be exchanged in the system, which is depen-
dent on the nature and the proportion of different solid particles.
For example, when the proper proportion of fine and coarse parti-
cles is mixed together, the fine particles will fill the porosities of
the granular structure (cement and aggregates) by releasing the
water in these pores. In this way, the workability will be improved
as part of filling water is transferred to free layer water. This may
explain why the highest workability was observed in mixes with
an intermediate S/A ratio of 0.3 rather than mixes with highest
mixing water content. When the sand content increases, the excess
amount of fine particles which cannot fill in porosities will absorb
water on their surface. The amount of adsorpted layer water is Fig. 3. Air content versus sand/cement ratio.

dependent on the surface area of sand. As dune sand exhibits sig-

nificantly higher surface area than river sand, dune sand particles
have high amount of adsorpted layer water. Therefore, at a high le- for RSC. This range, according to Daniel and Lobo [19], is from
vel of S/W ratio (S/W > 2.8), the workability of DSC becomes signif- 0.5% to 2.0% for entrapped air during mixing process.
icantly lower than that of RSC. The results suggest that a certain
amount of mixing water is required to ensure DSC a comparable
workability to RSC. Moreover, the S/A ratio plays important role 3.3. Compressive strength
in optimising workability of DSC when enough mixing water was
presented (S/W < 2.8). The effect of changing S/C ratio on 28-day compressive strength
(fc0 ) is shown in Fig. 4. In this figure, the solid line represents the
compressive strength of DSC in relation to its S/C ratio. As pre-
3.2. Air content and density sented, when S/C ratio is in low level, the compressive strength
increase with S/C ratio, reaching a maximum of 59.6 MPa when
In addition to slump testing, the density and air content were S/C = 1.41. When S/C ratio is higher than 1.41, the strength
also measured for fresh concrete. The measured density for both decreases with increasing S/C ratio. The tendency implies that
DSC and RSC is given in Table 3. As presented in the table, the high- different mechanisms affect the strength of DSC in different levels
est density among all samples is 2590.0 kg/m3 observed in RSC of S/C ratios. This is further confirmed by a comparison of strength
with an S/C ratio of 1.41; while the lowest is 2477.1 kg/m3observed difference between DSC and RSC.
in DSC with an S/C ratio of 1.65. The difference between the ex- The strength difference is shown in the bar chart in the same
treme values is less than 4%, indicating that the ratio of S/C has figure; wherein, the positive value indicates DSC having higher fc0
no significant influence on the density of both DSC and RSC. More- than its reference sample, or vice versa. It is evident from the bar
over, at identical mix proportion, the difference between DSC and chart that S/C ratio of 1.41 is also a threshold for the strength dif-
RSC samples is generally not greater than 1.5% which is negligible ference between DSC and RSC. When S/C ratio is under the thresh-
(see Table 3). old, the strength of DSC is comparable or even higher than that of
The measured air content against its S/C ratio is presented in DSC (both 4.08% and 4.26% are lower than the maximum stan-
Fig. 3 for both RSC and DSC samples. As shown in the figure, there dard deviation for compressive strength results). When S/C ratio is
is a threshold level of S/C ratio above which the air content in DSC above the threshold, the strength of DSC becomes notably lower
becomes more sensitive to S/C ratio At low level of S/C ratio than its reference RSC. In this level, the strength difference may
(S/C < 1.41), the change in air content with S/C ratio is not signifi- be attributed to the entrapment of more air bubbles in fresh DSC
cant; while at high level of S/C ratio (S/C > 1.41), the air content than in RSC (see Fig. 3). These bubbles occupy space between the
of DSC increases rapidly with S/C ratio, reaching a value of 1.7% cement grains and eventually create a more porous cement paste,
at S/C ratio of around 2.0. In comparison to RSC, the air content which leads to the reduction in concrete strength. However, it is
of DSC is generally comparable at low level of S/C ratio while is noted that the strength difference cannot be solely explained by
notably higher at high level of S/C ratio. This trend is similar to the difference in air contents especially when S/C ratio is in a low
the comparison of workability between DSC and RSC with respect level. For example, at S/C ratio of 1.08, the air content of DSC is
to S/C ratio. This consistency implies that more air bubbles are slight higher than RSC whereas the strength of DSC is also higher
introduced (during mixing process) in less workable mixtures.
Although at this level of S/C ratio, the air content in DSC is rela-
tively higher than RSC, it does not go beyond the typical range

Table 4
Replacement rates corresponding to C/S ratios for different reference grain size.

Code S/C p (dref = 215 lm) (%) p (dref = 175 lm) (%)
No. 1 0.91 43 21
No. 2 1.08 47 24
No. 3 1.25 51 27
No. 4 1.18 49 26
No. 5 1.41 54 30
No. 6 1.63 57 33
No. 7 1.65 58 33
No. 8 1.97 62 37
No. 9 2.28 65 41
Fig. 4. 28-day compressive strength versus sand/cement ratio.
 F.J. Luo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137 135

than RSC. This suggests that there must be other mechanisms for
strength gain of concrete due to incorporation of dune sand.
As previously discussed, the presence of VFP in dune sand can
bring about strength gain due to heterogeneous nucleation and
pozzolanic effect. Therefore, when studying the strength difference
caused by using dune sand, one must consider the positive effect as
well. To investigate the positive effect, the empirical model devel-
oped in Refs. [12–15] is applied as described by the following
equations:
a
Df ¼
1 þ ð Sb Þ c
eff

where Df is the overall strength gain due to heterogeneous nucle-

ation and pozzolanic effect; at the age of 28 days; a is a time depen- Fig. 5. Tendency of strength gain due to heterogeneous nucleation and pozzolanic
effect according to empirical model developed in Ref. [15].
dent coefficient and characterises the interaction between the
cement and the VFP in dune sand which is equivalent to mineral
examination of the strength gain (dref = 175 lm) shows an upward
admixture; b (=280) is a constant which close to the specific surface
trend followed by a gradual drop-down at a certain threshold. This
area of cement; c equals to 1 and; Seff is the efficient area defined by:
  tendency is also consistent with previous literature. As pointed out
p by Cyr et al. [15], the efficiency of VFPs is different regarding
Seff ¼ S  nðpÞ ¼ Ss  nðpÞ ¼ Ss  gðpÞ
100%  p strength gain when small or large quantities of powders are used:
where Ss is the overall specific surface area of VFP in dune sand a small or moderate amount of powders exhibits increasing
determined by B.E.T method (7077 kg/m2 for dref = 175 lm; strength gain efficiency with increasing VFPs content while a large
5890 kg/m2 for dref = 215 lm); S is the total area of contact; n(p) is amount exhibits the opposite trend. Similar observation is repost-
the efficiency function as defined in the following equation and; ed by Guettala [14] that the use of very fine dune sand powder as
g(p) is the efficiency factor replacement for cement has positive effect on mortar strength
when the replacement rate is lower than 20%, despite the fact that
 k   p n 1
1 þ cosðp  pÞ the type of dune sand is different. Therefore, 175 lm is more prop-
nðpÞ ¼  1þ
2 m erly defined as dref for dune sand.
Besides positive effects, the presence of VFPs can also have neg-
where p is the replacement rate; k, m and n are constant which ative effect on concrete strength due to the entrapment of rela-
equal to 0.7, 36.8 and 3.40 respectively as suggested in the tively large amount of air bubble (discussed above), and
literature. therefore, the final compressive strength of DSC is a results of their
To apply this model, it is required to define the fraction of VFPs combined effect as shown in Fig. 6. Wherein, the bar chart repre-
according to a reference grain size (dref) above which the particles sents the strength difference as it is in Fig. 4, the solid line repre-
do not have significant influence on hydration process. With the sents the strength gain from heterogeneous nucleation and
fraction of VFP determined, the replacement rate (p) is then calcu- pozzolanic effect for DSC according to the empirical model and,
lated as the arrow represents the strength difference caused by different
VEP air content. The downward arrows indicate DSC having higher air
p¼ content which relates to a negative effect due to higher porosity
VEP þ Cement
in concrete, or vice versa. At S/C ratio of 1.25, since there is no dif-
The calculated replacement rates for DSC are given in Table 4.
ference in air content between DSC and RSC, no arrow is labelled at
Here, it is worth mentioning that, although VFPs also exist in river
this S/C ratio (see Fig. 6).
sand, the proportion is considerably lower than (nearly half of) that
As presented in the solid line, the beneficial effects are depen-
in dune sand, equivalent to a replacement rate being close to zero.
dent on S/C ratio of DSC. When S/C ratio is lower than 1.41 (low le-
Therefore, in this model, only the VFPs in dune sand are consid-
vel of S/C ratio), the beneficial effect increases with S/C ratio.
ered. The dref, as proposed in the literature, is 215 lm; however,
Meanwhile, the detrimental effect due to the presence of more
as this value is for ordinary mineral admixture other than dune
air bubbles counteracts the beneficial effects, leading to a strength
sand powder, it may be required to define a new dref. In the current
reduction in DSC. This is evident in DSC at S/C ratios of 1.18 and
investigation, 175 lm was also selected as a possible dref. To eval-
1.41, with which DSC exhibits a lower strength compared to their
uate these two dref, the numerical values obtained from the empir-
ical model were compared with the experimental values. It was
found that 175 lm is applicable for dref of dune sand and the de-
tailed discussion is presented as follows.
When 215 lm is adopted as dref, it is found that the strength
gain decrease with increasing S/C ratio (see Fig. 5), which is not
completely consistent with the strength difference between DSC
and RSC as shown in the bar chart in Fig. 4). Accordingly to the
bar chart, there should be a peak in the strength gain at S/C ratio
of around 1.41, which leads to the highest positive strength differ-
ence between DSC and RSC. This is due to the fact that the positive
strength difference can only be attributed to heterogeneous nucle-
ation and pozzolanic effect because DSC and RSC have identical
mix proportion, except for the type of fine aggregate. With dref ad-
justed to 175 lm, a peak in strength gain was observed in DSC at
an S/C ratio of 1.41 (see Fig. 5), which matches better to the
strength difference as shown in bar chart in Fig. 4. A further Fig. 6. Schematic diagram showing combined effect on the strength of DSC.
136 F.J. Luo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137

presented in Fig. 8, DSC has comparable elastic modulus to RSC,

and for both type of concrete, Ec increase with increasing fc0 . As
suggested in ACI 318-02 (solid line in Fig. 8), the expression for se-
cant modulus of elasticity of concrete, for structural calculation,
applicable to normal weight concrete, is Ec ¼ 4:73ðfc0 Þ0:5 based on
standard test cylinders. As suggested in AS 3600-2009 (dash line
in Fig. 8), for concrete with mean compressive strength over
40 MPa, the elastic modulus of concrete at 28 days shall be taken
as, Ec ¼ q1:5  ½0:024ðfc0 Þ0:5 þ 0:12, in which the concrete density
q is taken into consideration; note that in Fig. 8, the density is
normalised to 2547 kg/m3 which is the average value for all the
specimens.

Fig. 7. Tensile splitting strength versus 28-day compressive strength.

4. Conclusion

The following conclusions are drawn from the study:

(1) Compared with reference RSC samples, the use of dune sand
does not have negative effect on the workability of concrete
up to an S/C ratio of 1.41, below which DSC has comparable
slump to RSC. At S/C ratio of 1.18, DSC has its highest slump,
reaching a value of 105 mm, which is only 5 mm lower than
that of RSC. With further increase in the ratio of S/C, the
slump of DSC becomes significantly lower than RSC as exces-
sive VFPs absorb large quantities of water on their surface.
(2) At low level of S/C ratio (S/C < 1.41), the variation in air con-
tent with S/C is negligible for both DSC and RSC. At high level
of S/C ratio, air content increases with increasing S/C ratio
Fig. 8. Elastic modulus versus 28-day compressive strength.
and the growth is more notable in DSC.
RSC counterparts. For other samples at low S/C level, beneficial ef- (3) Based on empirical model and experimental data, the refer-
fects are dominated mechanism, leading to a positive strength dif- ence grain size for VFP is estimated to be 175 lm below
ference between DSC and RSC. When S/C ratio is higher than 1.41, which the dune sand powders facilitate hydration process
the beneficial effects decrease with increasing S/C ratio whilst the due to heterogeneous nucleation and pozzolanic effect.
detrimental effect surpasses the beneficial effects, leading to an (4) With reference to RSC, DSC possesses a considerably higher
overall deterioration in DSC strength. As a result, the strength of amount of VFPs. The compressive strength of DSC is influ-
DSC is lower than that of RSC. Note that the figures above (Figs. 5 enced by the following two mechanisms related to VFPs,
and 6) are only schematic diagrams for predicting the tendency namely (1) heterogeneous nucleation and pozzolanic effects
only, which does not indicate the magnitude of the effects. This which lead to strength gain and (2) the entrapment of more
is due to the fact that (i) the empirical coefficients in the model air bubbles during compaction (especially at high S/C ratio)
are developed based on mortar mixtures rather than concrete mix- which leads to strength reduction. The strength difference
tures and (ii) heterogeneous nucleation and pozzolanic effects are between DSC and RSC is a result of the combined effect from
dependent on the nature of fine powders; in this regards, the dune the above mechanisms: at low level of S/C ratio (S/C < 1.41),
sand is different from the traditional admixtures. Therefore, a fur- the positive effects are predominated making DSC compara-
ther research is required to develop the model to quantify the po- ble or even higher than RSC in fc0 ; at high level of S/C ratio
sitive effect on strength of dune sand concrete due to presence of (S/C > 1.41), the negative effect will surpass the positive
VFP. effect, which lead to notable strength reduction in DSC.
(5) A comparative measurement of tensile splitting strength and
3.4. Splitting tensile strength elastic modulus between DSC and RSC was conducted and
the results show a similar performance in these properties
In the study, the measured splitting tensile strengths (ft) against with respect to a given compressive strength.
their corresponding fc0 are shown in Fig. 7 for both RSC and DSC. For (6) Results show that when the level of S/C ratio is properly con-
comparative purpose, different equations for estimating tensile trolled, dune sand can be used as a complete replacement for
strength are also shown in Fig. 7. As proposed in ACI 318, the ordinary fine aggregate without negative effects on the engi-
expression ft ¼ 0:3ðfc0 Þ2=3 indicates the relationship between the neering properties of concrete.
splitting tensile strength and compressive strength based on stan- (7) It should be noted that, however, the test trends observed
dard cylinder specimens, as shown in Fig. 7 (solid line). In AS3600, are valid only for the type of desert sand studied. For the
the relation is predicted as ft ¼ 0:56ðfc0 Þ1=2 , shown in the same fig- dune sand from other deserts, the optimisation of VFP con-
ure (dash line). It can be seen from the figure that the measured tent in DSC should be based on trial mixes.
values for both DSC and RSC are above the expected values sug-
gested by both ACI 318 and AS3600.
Acknowledgments
3.5. Elastic modulus
The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by
Fig. 8 shows the relation between elastic modulus (Ec) and the Australian Research Council to conduct this study. Dr. He
28-day compressive strength (fc0 ) for both DSC and RSC. As thanks Deakin University for funding her Alfred Deakin Fellowship.
 F.J. Luo et al. / Construction and Building Materials 47 (2013) 131–137 137

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