Essay About Concrete Mix And Concrete Cube Specimens

Compressive Strength of Empty Fruit
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The benefits of Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) as the partial cement replacement has been
well established. For instance, the usage of EFB as cement replacement material not only
harmless to the environment, but it also helps to preserve the natural resources. Besides,
due to the high composition of Potassium, EFB can also be use as a fertilizer. EFB has
been chosen based on its environmental-friendly characteristics and high in availability.
In this paper, the EFB were incinerated using the Ferrocement Furnace to form Empty
Fruit Bunch ash (EFBash). The percentage replacements of EFBash were 0% (control),
5%, 10%, 20% and 30%. The superplasticizers (SP) were added to the concrete mix
according to certain specifications. The concrete cube specimens were tested for
compressive strength for the ages of 7, 14, 28, 60 and 90 days. The result shows that the
5% EFBash concrete cube specimens gained the most optimum compressive strength
compared to the other percentages of EFBash concrete cube specimens. The compressive
strength of the concrete cube specimens were reduced as the percentage replacements of
EFBash increased and the addition of SP contributed to the early strength of the concrete
cube specimens.
1.1 General Background
The present construction system using plain concrete has shown its demerit these days.
Basically, concrete is a construction material composed of substance such as fly ash, cement,
water, chemical admixture and aggregate (Wikipedia the free Encyclopedia, 2010). Limestone is
used as a main component in production of cement. However, the depletion of limestone
nowadays is quite worrying. The government took this matter seriously and has decided to
conduct a study to overcome this problem few years back. Results from several successful
researches from many agencies, they have identified EFBash (Empty Fruit Bunch Ash) of oil
palm as a new replacement material for cement.
The government have take considerations of the availability of this material since
Malaysia is the second largest producer of palm oil. In 2008, Malaysia