The strength and durability investigations of powder type and VMA type self-consolidating concrete

Self Consolidating Concrete (SCC) is an emerging class of concrete materials that offers great potential for improved ease of placement, increased rate of construction, and reduced cost through reduced time and labour. SCC can be manufactured by three ways viz. Powder type, VMA (viscosity modifying admixture) type and combined powder and VMA type. This paper aims to compare performance of powder type and VMA type SCC. To avoid the effect of pozzolanic materials like silica fume and fly ash an inert powder i.e. quarry dust (QD) has been used as filler for manufacturing powder type of SCC. All the mixes have been tested for compressive strength and split tensile strength. For the study of durability characteristics of all test mixes sorptivity test, chloride ingress test and resistance to acid attack have been investigated. The results of strength and durability investigations show that performance of VMA type of SCC was inferior to the powder type of SCC.