Performance Comparison between EAFD and Conventional Supplementary Cementing Materials

Abstract

Sustainability of concrete construction necessitates exploring potential renewable resource, especially from industrial waste products.  Electric arc furnace dust (EAFD), a by-product of the modern electric arc furnace (EAF) process from the steel manufacturing industry has an adverse impact on the environment. Utilizing EAFD in concrete production as a cement replacement material together with silica fume (SF) and fly ash (FA) has raised the interest of many researchers.  This study investigates the use optimum 5% EAFD content refers to both 15% SF and 20% FA in water binder ratio of 0.5 and sand to cement ratio of 2. The aim of this study is to obtain the percentage replacement levels of EAFD that are equivalent to the SF and FA regarding workability, setting time, compressive strength and resistance to rapid chloride permeability. The compressive strength results showed that replacement of 5% SF and 15% FA are the equivalent replacement levels to 3% EAFD. Similarly, results from resistance to rapid chloride permeability showed that the optimum EAFD content performed better than the replacement levels of FA.  However, SF replacement levels showed the best resistance to rapid chloride permeability. Therefore, 3% replacement of EAFD provided an intermediate performance between the optimum SF and FA contents and exceeded that of the control.