Effect Of Plantain Peels Ash As Admixture On The Bleeding Of Fresh Concrete

Abstract

Concrete bleeding is a major challenge in the construction industry because; it leads to the production of very porous concrete with weak structure. It is in a bid to overcome the challenge of using imported and expensive admixtures that this research was carried out, to determine the possibility of using locally available and cheap materials as admixtures to reduce the amount of bleeding water in fresh concrete. A sample of ripe plantain peels was collected from Zuba fruit market Abuja. The peels were carefully air dried after which they were burnt in open air into ashes and sieved through sieve 45µm. The chemical analysis was carried out at the department of Chemistry, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria to determine its chemical composition. The aggregates characterization was done, the specific gravity of the Plantain Peels Ash (PPA) was determined as 2.16 which indicated that PPA is a light weight material. A concrete mix ratio of 1:1 : 3 was used. PPA as admixture was added to the concrete mix in 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0% of the mass of cement. After which the amount of bleeding water was determined. The result obtained showed that the mass of the bleeding water was reduced as the percentage of PPA used was increased; this was as a result of increase in surface area of the admixture. PPA is recommended as a water retaining admixture since it was able to reduce the amount of bleeding water of the fresh concrete.