Optimizing the production of metakaolin based geopolymer concrete under ambient temperature / Ahmed Abdelaleim Abdelaleim Elhadidy ; Supervised Mohamed I. Serag , Muhammad S. Elfeky

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University -Faculty of Engineering - Department of Civil Engineering

Great efforts were exerted to combat environmental impact of construction by introducing an alternate binder to Portland cement. In recent years, geopolymer has attracted great attention and considered as the third generation because a lot of its advantages. Geopolymers are assembled by the reaction of aluminosilicate materials with alkali activators. The aluminosilicate materials were mainly metakaolin at the early age of the research development. Metakaolin is produced from kaolin by a thermal treatment process. The thesis was designed in order to optimize the production of metakaolin based geopolymer concrete byoptimizing the utilization of metakaolin as a cement substitution in concrete, a significant study will be made to investigate the effect of using different heating temperatures as a thermal treatment of kaolin on microstructure and mechanical properties and finding the optimum heating temperature to improve the mechanical properties, in addition to the time required of the process. As well as Evaluating the using of different percentages of activator and activated material by investigating the effect of activator modulus ratio (Ms), Na2O percentages, and w/b ratios. Also, the evaluation of the technique of mixing and curing process on the mechanical and physical properties of concrete. In this thesis, a group of metakaolin based geopolymer concrete mixtures have been found with different properties in their fresh and hardened condition, which can be used in different fields

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