ABSTRACT

In an attempt to reduce non-renewable material usage, reduce green-house substances and at the same time be relevant to our environment, this research presents the progress of investigation going on to evaluate some properties of EPO-FBA as partial replacement of cement in the production of structural concrete. This research work is carried out to determine the properties of Empty Palm Oil Fruit Bunch Ash (EPO-FBA) when used as partial replacement for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in concrete. The test to be carry out include the test for the chemical properties, fineness and specific gravity of the EPO-FBA and also tests for consistency, density, and compressive strength will be carry out on concrete whose composition of cement is being proportioned and replaced with 5% interval ofEPO-FBA by weight up to 15%. The mix design used for the concrete mix was 1 :2:4 and the Water/cement ratio used was 0.5. The concrete cubes were cured in water for 7, 14, 28, 60 and 90 days so as to attain its maximum attainable strength due to the process of hydration. At the end of the study, the result showed that the workability of concrete specimen with EPO-FBA as partial replacement of OPC reduces with increasing quantity of EPO-FBA because of its increased water-demanding property. The compressive strength of the concrete was observed to decrease as the addition of EPO-FBA in proportions was increased but there was no significant difference between the compressive strength of the concrete with 5% replacement and the control. The concrete can as well be classified as a heavy weight concrete based on the density range of the whole cube with different proportion of EPOFBA ranges in densities between 2414.Skg/ m3 and 2509.6kg/m3 . However, from the above test results it can be recommended that EPO-FBA may be used as replacement material of cement in concrete up to 5 %.