Utilization of Rice Husk Ash and Fly Ash in Construction Industry

Abstract

This experimental work is an effort to try to develop the awareness and importance of waste management and its utilization in productive manner among the people. In today’s more environmentally conscious world, a more responsible approach to the environment is to increase the use of by-products of one which is disposed off as waste as raw material for construction industry. Substitution of OPC cement by rice husk ash and fly ash will serve both solid waste minimization and waste recovery. The study focuses to determine the relative performance of cement by using rice husk ash and fly ash. This work summarizes the experimental studies on strength characteristics of concrete in which rice husk ash (RHA) and fly ash is used as partial replacement of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in the range of 0 to 20% by weight of cement. These two wastes prove that; ash to cash or refuse to resource and wastes to wealth. So such waste can be blended with cement, is the step towards economy and obviously towards progress of the nation. Disposal of waste produced by civilization is an issue of topmost importance today; particularly the nonbiodegradable waste material leads to disposal crisis and environmental pollution. Another major concern is requirement of huge quantities of construction material mainly concrete to fulfill the needs of rapid growth of civil in fracture. The compressive strength of the blocks for all mix increases with age at curing and decreases as the RHA content increases. The compressive strength test was carried out as per relevant Indian standard code of practice. The optimum replacement level of OPC with RHA-FA is 17–13% the optimum results for the 28 days strength.

Keywords: Rice husk ash, fly ash, experiments on blended cement with different proportions of wastes, compressive strength comparison