Fire resistance evaluation of rice husk ash concrete

This paper studied the fire resistance of rice husk ash concrete. An experimental method was adopted as the research design in this work, which produced one hundred and eighty four (184) concrete specimens with the addition of rice husk ash in weighted percentages of 5%, 10% and 15% respectively. They were cured and tested at 7 days, 28 days, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120 days, 150 days and 200 days. After the targeted curing days, the specimen were exposed to temperatures of 100 °C, 200 °C, 300 °C, 400 °C, 500 °C, 600 °C and 700 °C for 2 hours in a muffle electric furnace. The results show that the pozzolanic concrete and control concrete fire resistance ranged between (60%-96%) for (200 °C-400 °C), (41%-55%) at 500 °C, and (13%-26%) for (600 °C-700 °C). It is concluded that 5% weighted RHA concrete performs better in fire than others.