Abstract
The incorporation of commercially available fly ash (FA) as low cost material in concrete has long been established. Large quantities of FA are utilized for research and field applications because of the pozzolanic characteristics. One of many pozzolanic materials is palm kernel incinerated ash (PKIA). The abundance of PKIA as an agricultural waste material in West Africa obtained by the incineration of palm kernel husk and shells in milling boilers paved way for this study. Specimens containing 50%PKIA were cast and cured both in water and air and their compressive strength and shrinkage behaviours were investigated with and without the addition of superplasticizer (hydroxylated carboxylic (HC) acid) in comparison with controlled specimens containing 100%OPC. Results showed that the strength development in PKIA green concrete at all ages of curing; 7,14 and 28 days were lower than OPC concrete. On the addition of superplasticizer, strength of 36.9N/mm2 was observed for specimens with superplasticizer as against 31.7N/mm2 for specimens without superplasticizer on the 28day. The water curing method produced the best results while the predicted shrinkage strain of the green concrete in accordance to ACI 209R-92 standard was higher than the control specimens.