AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE
CHARACTERISTICS OF CONCRETE WITH
PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF CEMENT WITH
RICE HUSK ASH IN AUTOCLAVED AERATED
CONCRETE
Mr. M. Senthil Rajan. M. E1., Arunima.D2, Deepavarshini.B3, Venkatesh.A4
1
Asst.Professsor, Department of Civil Engineering,
2,3,4
B. E Students, Department of Civil Engineering,
Dr.N.G.P. Institute of Technology,
Coimbatore-48, India.
Abstract— AAC stands for Autoclaved Aerated Concrete also
known as autoclaved cellular concrete (ACC), autoclaved
lightweight concrete (ALC), autoclaved concrete, cellular
concrete, porous concrete). It is an ultra-light concrete masonry
product having good number of advantages in practicality. It is
now gaining its importance in construction industry replacing
all the conventional methods. This cellular structure gives AAC
a number of exceptional physical characteristics. It weighs as
little as 1/5 as much as ordinary concrete because of its distinct
cellular structure which possess millions of tiny pockets of
entrapped air. AAC consists of basic materials that are widely
available. These include cement, lime, fly ash, aluminium
powder (an expansion agent), and water. The finished product is
up to five times the volume of the raw materials used, with an
air content of 70% to 80% (depending on the required strength
and density.). In the last decade, construction industry has been
conducting various researches on the utilization of easily
available raw materials in construction. AAC is one of the
materials which can cope up with the shortage of building raw
materials and can produce a light weight, energy efficient and
environmentally friendly concrete. This study deals with the
partial replacement of cement with 0%, 20%, 30%, 50% of rice
husk ash in autoclaved aerated concrete and to check the
improvement in its characteristics.
Keywords— Autoclave aerated concrete blocks, Aluminium
powder paste, Fly ash, Light weight, Rice husk ash.
I. INTRODUCTION
Autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) is a derivative
of fly ash that is combined with cement, lime and water and
an aerating agent. AAC is produced as blocks and panels.
Autoclaved aerated concrete, is a concrete that has been
manufactured to contain lots of closed air pockets.
Lightweight and fairly energy efficient, it is produced by
adding a foaming agent to concrete in a mould, then wire-
cutting blocks or panels from the resulting ‘cake’ and
‘cooking’ them with steam (autoclaving). It is an approved
eco-friendly building material that comes from industrial
waste and is made from non-toxic ingredients. With AAC, the
construction process can be about 20 per cent faster. It weighs
only about 50 per cent of a standard concrete block and
possesses high thermal insulation and is acoustics-friendly. It
also has better fire resistance than fly ash and is non-
combustible. It’s non-allergic and hence maintains the quality
of air within a building without changing its properties over
time. Using AAC can reduce construction cost by about 2.5
per cent for buildings such as schools and hospitals and
reduce the running costs of hotel and office buildings by to 30
to 40 per cent over time. Autoclaved Aerated Concrete can
also be named as AAC and is an important construction
material for architects, engineers and builders. Also, it is an
appropriate material with high energy efficiency, fire safety,
and cost effectiveness. First inventor of AAC was a Swedish
Engineer who created AAC in 1922. Manufacturing of
concrete using steam pressure goes back to 1880, when AAC
was brought to Germany, Manufacturers were facing
problems to find a proper method for cutting this material,
and German engineer solved this problem by introducing a
new method known as Wire Cutting which increased the rate
of production for AAC. After creation of that cutting method,
AAC became an adequate material with respect to Germany’s
firm energy codes. AAC had no standard code of practice and
this delayed introduction of it into USA market. Second
production of AAC was done by Yong in 1997 in Germany.
AAC block is used in a wide range of commercial, industrial
and residential application and has been in use in EUROPE
over 90 years, the Middle East for the past 40 years and in
America and Australia for 25 years. It's an estimate that AAC
now account for over 40% of all construction in UK and more
than 60% of construction in Germany. In INDIA production
of AAC block started in 1972. AAC is a light weight, high
strength building material and is produced in a variety of
forms from blocks, to structural floors and wall panels. AAC
is credited by LEED (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) and USGBC (US Green Building
Council) as a “GREEN” alternative to traditional construction
materials. Indian Green Building Council (IGBC)
recommends its use in India. There is a very interesting
connection between availability of AAC blocks and business
opportunities. Major hurdle stopping construction industry
from completely switching to AAC blocks is availability. As
of now there are only couple of AAC factories in Gujarat.
Their total production capacity is around 2000 m3/day while
current requirement stands at 2800-3000 m3/day. Out of total
production, a chunk of total production is dispatched to
Maharashtra.
It is made up of calcium carbonate and has the
chemical formula CaCO3. Lime has high pH value.
Composed largely of calcite and aragonite, and water soluble,
hard and durable.
7. Water:
pH of water is used in this investigation 7.
TABLE I
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ORDINARY PORTLAND CEMENT AND RICE HUSK
ASH.

Sample Specific gravity Blaine Fineness

A. Materials: (cm2 /g)
Rice husk ash 2.12 4200
The materials used for manufacturing AAC are as OPC 3.15 3600
follows;

1. Cement:
TABLE II
Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) of grade 53 is used CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF MATERIALS USED
in the present investigation. Its chemical composition is Chemical Ordinary Portland Rice husk
mentioned in table 1. composition (% by cement (OPC) ash
weight)
Silicon dioxide (SiO2) 19.85 85.20%
2. Rice husk ash:
Aluminium oxide 4.49 0.59%
(Al2O3)
Rice husk ash used in the present investigation Iron oxide (Fe2O3) 3.56 0.22%
collected from a rice mill near coimbatore. The collected
ashes were dried in the oven at the temperature of 100oc ±5 Calcium oxide (CaO) 66.96 0.51%
for 24 hours to remove moisture in it before sieved and
ground to obtain fine particles. RHA used in this study has Magnesium oxide 1.36 0.41%
been identified as pozzolanic material and its chemical (MgO)
properties have been mentioning in table 1. Sodium oxide (Na2O) 0.68 0.05%

3. Fly ash: Potassium oxide 0.34 2.93%

(K2O)
Sulphur trioxide 2.46 0.10%
The Fly ash used for this investigation is of Class F (SO3)
category. It is available in the largest quantities. Class F fly Loss on ignition 1.98 1.98
ash generally has a low lime content, usually less than 15% (LOI)
but it contains a greater combination of silica and alumina SiO2+A12O3+ - 86.01%
iron for about 70%. Fe2O3

4. Silica sand:

Silica sand is used as fine aggregate in this TABLE III

investigation. Natural River sand with fraction passing PERCENTAGE REPLACEMENT LEVELS, WATER/BINDER RATIO AND
ALUMINIUM POWDER CONTENT
through 4.75mm sieve and retained on 60micron sieve will be
used. Replacement Water cement ratio aluminium powder
level (%) content (% by wt.
5. Aluminium Powder of cement)
50% OPC, 0.50 0. 15 %
Aluminium powder is used at a rate of 0.15% by 50% RHA
volume. Aluminium power reacts with calcium hydroxide 70% OPC, 0.48 0. 15 %
30 % RHA
and water to form hydrogen. The hydrogen gas forms and
80% OPC, 0.47 0. 15 %
doubles the volume of raw mix creating gas bubbles up to 3 20 % RHA
mm in diameter. At the end of the foaming process, the 100% OPC, 0.45 0. 15 %
hydrogen escapes into the atmosphere and is replaced by air. 0 % RHA

6. Lime
 TABLE IV
B. Manufacture of the autoclaved aerated concrete with rice TEST RESULTS
husk ash: (WATER ABSORPTION AND CHARACTERISTICSCOMPRESSIVE
STRENGHT)
The autoclaved aerated concrete was produced with
the following composition: lime, cement, fly ash, silica sand Aerated Compressive strength (MPa) Water
and aluminium powder. The mixtures were prepared in the concrete absorption
following way: sand, cement, lime, fly ash and rice husk ash
were mixed based on the proportions provided in table 3. 3 7 14 21 28 (% by
Then water was added to the mixture to from a slurry. The Weight)
last ingredient put into the mixture was the aluminium 50% OPC, 0.05 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.99 45
powder in the slurry. Then the mix was poured into 70.6 mm 50% RHA 5
moulds. After the mixture attained proper hardness, concrete 70% OPC, 0.64 1.9 2.8 3.9 4.25 37
blocks were subjected to autoclaving. 30 % RHA
80% OPC, 0.53 1.2 2.1 3.55 3.93 34
20 % RHA
100% OPC, 0.90 1.4 2.8 3.7 3.86 23
0 % RHA

Fig.1 Manufacturing process of AAC

II. EXPERIMENTAL TESTS

1. Water Absorption Test:

Dry the specimen in a ventilated oven at a temperature of 105

to 110°C till it attains substantially constant mass. Cool the Fig. 2 Compressive strength with different replacement percentages of RHA
specimen to room temperature and obtain its weight (w1).
Specimen warm to touch shall not be used for this purpose.
Immerse completely dried specimen in clean water at a room
temperature 27°C for 24 hours. Remove the specimen and
wipe out any traces of water with a damp cloth and weigh the
specimen. Complete the weighing 3 minutes after the
specimen has been removed for water (w2). The results
obtained have been mentioned in table IV.

Formula: Water absorption = ((w2-w1)/w1) X 100

2.Compressive Strength Test:

Out of many tests applied to the AAC blocks, this is

the utmost important which gives an idea about all the
characteristics of blocks and also concrete. By this single test
one judge that whether block has been done properly or not.
The results obtained have been mentioned in table IV.
Formula: Compressive strength= (load in N/Area in mm2)
Fig. 3 Water absorption with different replacement percentages of RHA
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Thus, from the experiment, the density increases
gradually by adding RHA into the mix matrix. Since AAC is
considerably having low compressive strength compared to
RCC here RHA results in increasing strength, density, and
increases in rice husk ash decreases the water cement ratio.
Increasing the fineness increases the reactivity and thus
increases the strength of the concrete. Low specific gravity of
RHA leads to the reduction in mass per unit volume. By
adding RHA results of no bleeding and segregation. RHA
acts as micro filler in the concrete mix. The decrease in the
strength by increasing the RHA replacement level is due to
the reduction in cement content and it leads to the reduced C-
H releasing in hydration process and is not sufficient to react
with all the available silica which is high in the matrix and it
remains inert and it can’t contribute to the strength.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The study reported in this paper was undertaken to
investigate the properties of autoclaved aerated concrete
when matrix with rice husk ash in order to produce usable
materials in modern concrete application. the material
containing different amounts 0%, 20%, 30% and 50% of rice
husk ash particles as partial replacement of cement. From the
above graphs and table comparisons, it indicates that by
adding rice husk ash particles into the cement, sand /fly ash,
lime, Aluminium powder matrix gives better results like
increased compressive strength, decreased water requirement
as increased RHA content and thus increases the density. As
rice husk ash is rich in silica content (SiO2), it reacts with
calcium hydroxide Ca (OH)2 and forms more C-S-H gel and
thus results in increased compressive strength. The influence
of rice husk ash in the micro structures is increased density
which results in reduced foam volume (pores) which
corresponds in reduced water absorption quality. The
compressive strength of the blocks for all mix increases with
age at curing and decreases as the RHA content increases.
The optimum replacement level OPC with RHA is 30%. For
a given mix, the water requirement is decreases with
increases in RHA.
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