Effect of curing system on metakaolin based geopolymer concrete

Abstract EN

Geopolymer concrete is considered as a new material that brought attention from many researchers due to its low impact on environment pollution compared to normal Portland cement concrete.

This research studied the effect of different curing systems on the strength of Metakaolin (as silica-alumina material) based Geopolymer.

Eleven curing systems were used including curing by sun light and laboratory ambient environment at winter (with temperature of 8-19oC) and at summer (with temperature of 32-48oC), curing with halogen lamp, curing by heat at 60oC for 6 hours and at 100oC for 4 hours, water curing, curing by wet burlap, in addition to a mixture of different previous curing systems.

The results indicated that the optimum curing temperature for Geopolymer concrete is (32- 48oC)that can be accomplished under sun light or room temperature, while moist curing proved to be not suitable for this type of concrete.

The results also indicate that this type of concrete has high rate of hardening, where it is possible to gain more than 83% of the 28 days strength at 7 days age when using optimum temperature curing