Experimental Study on the Application of Cementless Material with Industrial By-Products to Steam-Cured Precast Concrete Products

The purpose of this study was to apply a cementless binder using industrial by-products (fly ash, ground-granulated blast furnace slag, and silica fume) to precast concrete products. In this binder, calcium hydroxide was included as an alkali stimulant but Portland cement was not included. Experiments on the compressive strength and durability of this type of material were conducted and its applicability to precast concrete products was investigated using full-scale specimens. The experiments proved that high-temperature steam curing is effective at obtaining strength development and that compressive strength can be expressed as a linear function of the binder–water ratio. Experimental results of chloride ion diffusion coefficient and sulfuric acid resistance suggested that the proposed material has higher resistances than conventional cement concrete against these deterioration factors. It was also demonstrated that full-scale specimens of a box culvert and a centrifugally compacted pipe using this type of material have almost the same load-bearing capacity and deformation performance as those using conventional cement concrete. It is believed that the proposed material could be used as a construction material instead of cement concrete, contribute to reducing CO(2) emission, and increase the reuse of industrial by-products.