Concrete Mix Design Optimization with Copper Slag and Iron Slag as Replacement Materials Using Taguchi Design of Experiments

Abstract

Concrete is one of the most widely used material and its demand is increasing day by day. As the production of cement requires high energy usage especially for grinding and calcination of raw materials and it also causes air pollution due to release of high amount of carbon dioxide. The concept of sustainable development should also need to be considered so that natural systems continue to provide natural resources. Thus due to these environmental impacts, use of by products have increased. This is also beneficial on economic point of view. Among these there are slags produced in metallic refineries. It is found that most of the slags put no threat to environment and human health. Inclusion of slags in concrete is found to be beneficial in many cases. The thesis aims to find compressive strength of concrete with partial replacement of cement with copper slag and fine aggregates with iron slag. Taguchi method was used for the analysis of results. ANOVA statistical approach was used to find the effect of change of a parameter on compressive strength of material.