Mixed Influence of Metakaolin (MK) and Steel Fiber on Mechanical Properties of Concrete

The advances of concrete technology proved that the use of mineral admixture such as silica fume, coconut shells, egg shell powder, Fly ash, and GGBS are necessary and essential for producing high-performance concrete. In addition, incorporation of these materials immensely helps to address environmental problem related to damage being caused by extraction of raw materials, CO₂ emissions during cement manufacturing process and disposal of industrial waste by products. From last few decades, the use of metakaolin as a partial replacement to cement was increased tremendously only due to its high pozzolanic content. The present study shows the influence of metakaolin as a mineral admixture and steel fiber as an additional material, on properties of concrete. Metakaolin was blended with cement in various proportions to study the effect of strength on concrete. In this work, concrete was made up with Pozzolanic Portland Cement (PPC) to produce control mix and further replaced by metakaolin with 5, 10, 15, 20%, respectively. The mechanical properties of concrete were assessed by means of compressive strength, flexural strength of concrete. From the obtained results, 15% replacement of cement with metakaolin has higher compressive strength. The maximum compressive strength attained was 42.95 and 45.09 MPa. And it is greater than the normal concrete strength, i.e., 37.65 and 42.16 MPa for 28 and 90 days, respectively.