Abstract
The ground steel slag (GSS) was used in synergy with ultrafine- palm oil fuel ash (UPOFA) to study the shrinkage of alkaline activated GSS-UPOFA (AAGU) products, which were oven-cured for 24 h at 60 degrees C and relative humidity of 50%. The GSS (G)/(GSS+UPOFA) varied from 0 to 0.8 and 0 to 0.4 for pastes and mortars, respectively with the use of the two activators -Na(2)SiO(3)aq (SiO2/Na2O=3.3) and 10 M NaOHaq. The findings showed that steel slag inclusion decreased the shrinkage of AAGU mortars and pastes due to its larger pore volume, and its enhancement of bulk modulus of the solid skeleton (C-(A)-S-H) through infusion of a network-modified Ca2+. The shrinkage was also found to decrease with the increase in the NaOHaq/Na(2)SiO(3)aq mass ratio from 1 to 2.5. The 90-day shrinkage of the product prepared with GSS/(GSS+UPOFA) of 0.2 were found to be 25.88x10(3) and 8.20x10(3) mu epsilon in the paste and mortar, respectively.