Construction and Building Materials: Nipat Puthipad, Masahiro Ouchi, Sovannsathya Rath, Anuwat Attachaiyawuth

Construction and Building Materials 144 (2017) 1–12
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat
Enhanced entrainment of fine air bubbles in self-compacting concrete

with high volume of fly ash using defoaming agent for improved
entrained air stability and higher aggregate content
Nipat Puthipad ⇑, Masahiro Ouchi ⇑, Sovannsathya Rath, Anuwat Attachaiyawuth
School of Systems Engineering, Kochi University of Technology, 185 Miyanokuchi, Tosayamada-cho, Kami-city, Kochi 782-8502, Japan
h i g h l i g h t s
Defoaming agent enhances the entrainment of fine air bubbles in SCC with fly ash.
The entrainment of fine air bubbles improves the air stability in SCC with fly ash.
Higher amount of fine air enhances the self-compactability of concrete with fly ash.
Ball-bearing effect of fine air allows higher aggregate content in SCC with fly ash.
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper presents an experimental study on the use of a defoaming agent (DA) to promote entrainment
Received 19 November 2016 of fine air bubbles for improved volumetric stability of entrained air in self-compacting concrete (SCC)
Received in revised form 13 February 2017 with fly ash. The possibility of increasing the aggregate content of self-compacting concrete with fly
Accepted 8 March 2017
ash through the ball-bearing effect of fine entrained air bubbles is also investigated. Lower water reten-
tion and the ball-bearing effect of both fly ash and entrained air bubbles are considered to affect the self-
compactability of fresh concrete. The results suggest that, generally, the employment of DA improves the
Keywords:
stability of entrained air bubbles owing to the reduced entrainment of large air bubbles. The self-
Self-compacting concrete
Self-compactability
compactability of fresh concrete with fly ash is found to improve as dosage of DA increases, due to the
Fly ash ball-bearing effect of fine entrained air bubbles. Evidently, a higher aggregate content is also made pos-
Ball-bearing effect sible through use of a certain type of air-entraining agent (AEA), due to the lower amount of large
Water retention entrained air bubbles.
Aggregate content Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Entrained air bubbles
Defoaming agent
1. Introduction employing a superplasticiser [1]. Therefore, SCC usually requires

a higher cement content as compared with conventional concrete
Self-compacting concrete (SCC) was initially developed, in 1988 (Fig. 1). This leads to significantly higher costs and poorer sustain-
as a means to enhance the durability of concrete without the ability in terms of the environment.
requirement for skilled labour [1]. In order to achieve adequate Currently, many approaches to reduce the amount of cement
self-compactability, the mortar and paste phases in SCC are used in SCC are being studied with the aim of reducing its environ-
required to have suitable deformability and viscosity. Self- mental impact. A commonly used approach is to employ fly ash as
compactability is typically attained in fresh concrete by limiting a partial replacement for cement in SCC. Since fly ash is a by-
the aggregate content, using a low water-powder ratio and product of coal-burning power plants, its use as a cement replace-
ment is known to be beneficial in environmental terms. Also,
through the pozzolanic and hydration reactions, the required com-
pressive strength can be maintained if an appropriate fly ash
⇑ Corresponding authors. replacement ratio is chosen [2–4]. Hence, fly ash is a widely used
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (N. Puthipad), ouchi.masahiro@ ingredient in SCC [5,6]. Furthermore, the ball-bearing effect of fly
kochi-tech.ac.jp (M. Ouchi), [email protected] (S. Rath), anuwat.
ash can allow the employment of higher fine aggregate content
[email protected] (A. Attachaiyawuth).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.03.049
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 N. Puthipad et al. / Construction and Building Materials 144 (2017) 1–12
Fig. 1. Comparison of volumetric mix proportions of self-compacting concrete (SCC) and normal concrete.
of mortar (s/m) in SCC [7]. This can further reduce cement usage 2. Indices and test method used for evaluating the Ball-bearing
and reduce environmental impact. effect of fly ash and entrained air bubbles on Self-
Air-entrainment has also been found to be an effective way to compactability of fresh mortar
reduce the usage of cement in SCC [8–10]. Since entrained air
bubbles increase the total volume of the SCC, the volume of all 2.1. Indices for evaluating flowability of fresh mortar
other components, including cement, can be reduced in an equiv-
alent volume. Also, the fine aggregate content of the mortar (s/m) Fly ash and entrained air bubbles are known to influence the
can be increased if air bubbles with suitable characteristics can flowability of SCC through the ball-bearing effect and reduction
be entrained; this can further reduce cement usage. Even though in water demand due to their spherical shape [7–12]. These influ-
increasing the air content can significantly reduce the compressive ences on flowability include changes in the deformability and vis-
strength of SCC, a suitably chosen air content allows adequate cosity of the fresh mortar, as well as in the self-compactability of
compressive strength to be obtained [8]. the fresh concrete. In this work, fresh mortar deformability was
The effects of fly ash on the fresh and hardened properties of determined by the mortar flow test in terms of relative flow area,
SCC have been extensively studied [2,5,11–19]. The ball-bearing Cm (Fig. 3), while fresh mortar viscosity was determined by the
effect of fly ash on the self-compactability of fresh concrete has funnel test in terms of relative funnel speed, Rm. These indices
also been clarified, allowing a higher fine aggregate content to were used to analyse the ball-bearing effect and reduction in water
be used in SCC [7]. Further, the effects of air-entrainment on demand resulting from the use of both fly ash and entrained air
enhancing the self-compactability of fresh concrete, both with bubbles.
and without fly ash, have been studied [8–10,20]. However, fly
ash was found to increase the amount of large entrained air bub- 2.2. Simple evaluation method for interaction between fresh mortar
bles [20]. Furthermore, it was noted that the spherical shape of fly and coarse aggregate in SCC
ash causes the unification and escape of entrained air bubbles.
This is known to reduce the stability of entrained air content in In order to reduce the amount of labor, time and materials
SCC [20,21]. required to test the self-compactability of fresh concrete, a simple
Seemingly, a defoaming agent (DA) can reduce the air content evaluation method for the interaction between fresh mortar and
in non-air-entrained SCC by destabilising the walls of air bubbles coarse aggregate in SCC has been developed [26]. This method
[22,23]. Thus, air bubbles easily combine and escape from the entails adding spherical glass beads, with smooth surface, as mod-
concrete. Also, DA was found to be able to eliminate large els of the coarse aggregate into the fresh mortar for testing the
entrained air bubbles in SCC, when a suitable mixing method mortar-coarse aggregate interaction. The effective diameter of
was used [24]. Although the size distributions of the entrained the glass beads used is 10 mm and they are added in the propor-
can be influenced by various factors [25], these suggest the tion of 20% by total volume of mortar [26]. The self-
potential of DA to reduce the proportion of large air bubbles compactability of the fresh concrete is then quantified in terms
(Fig. 2), which are less stable than small air bubbles, in air- of the relative funnel speed of the fresh mortar, Rm, and the fresh
entrained SCC with fly ash [21]. mortar with glass beads, Rmb (Fig. 4). The degree of reduction in
In this paper, the ability of a DA to reduce the proportion of mortar flowability due to addition of the model coarse aggregate,
large entrained air bubbles and enhance the stability of the 1-Rmb/Rm, is found to have a unique correlation with the self-
entrained air in SCC with an increased volume of fly ash is clarified. compactability, in terms of fill height, of the fresh concrete, as illus-
The ball-bearing effect of the fine entrained air bubbles on the self- trated in Fig. 5 [26]. The fill height was determined by the concrete
compactability of fresh concrete with fly ash is also studied with Box Test with obstacle R1 (five deformed rebars of 10 mm nominal
the aim of increasing the aggregate content, for further reduction diameter) using concrete with a coarse aggregate content to con-
in cement content. crete volumetric ratio (g/c) of 0.30 (Fig. 6). For concrete with the
Fig. 2. Potential effect of defoaming agent in reducing the proportion of large entrained air bubbles in SCC with fly ash.

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Construction and Building Materials 144 (2017) 1–12

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Construction and Building Materials

Enhanced entrainment of fine air bubbles in self-compacting concrete

1. Introduction employing a superplasticiser [1]. Therefore, SCC usually requires

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