Mitigating the autogenous shrinkage of alkali-activated slag by internal curing

Alkali activated slag (AAS) has shown promising potential to replace ordinary Portland cement as a binder material. Synthesized from industrial by-products, AAS can show high strength, thermal resistance and good durability. However, AAS has been reported to exhibit high autogenous shrinkage. Autogenous shrinkage is a critical issue for building...

A molecular dynamics study of N-A-S-H gel with various Si/Al ratios

The understanding of sodium aluminosilicate hydrate (N-A-S-H) gel is still limited due to its complex and amorphous structure. Recently, molecular dynamics simulation has provided a unique opportunity to better understand the structure of N-A-S-H gel from nanoscale. In this work, the N-A-S-H gel structure was obtained by simulating the...

Utilization of biomass fly ash in alkali-activated materials

This paper investigated the feasibility of using biomass fly ash (BFA) to prepare alkaliactivated slag and fly ash paste. The reference mixture was alkali-activated slag and coal fly ash (CFA) paste with a slag-to-coal fly ash ratio of 50/50. In other mixtures, coal fly ash was replaced at 40% and 100% with BFA, respectively. The results showed...