2012 International Conference on Innovation, Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR2012), Malacca, Malaysia :
21-22 May, 2012
Effect of Drying Method on Compressive
Strength of Special Concrete with Bottom
Ash
Mohd Syahrul Hisyam bin Mohd Sani
Faculty of Civil Engineering
Universiti Teknologi Mara
Pahang, Malaysia
msyahrul210@pahang.uitm.edu.my
Abstract--From the electric coal power plant, the
waste material that formed is the bottom ash and fly
ash. Bottom ash is collected at the bottom of boiler or
furnace and sometimes it is placed on the surface of
the chamber in a water-filled hopper. High-pressure
water is used to remove the bottom ash from the
chamber. While, fly ash is disposed to atmosphere by
tall chimney. 80% of product of electric coal power
plant will become fly ash and remain 20% of product
is bottom ash. The bottom ash is physically coarse,
porous, light, glassy, granular, greyish and
incombustible material that suitable used in concrete
for civil engineering application. The type and
properties of bottom ash produced depends on the
type of boiler or furnace and also the sources of raw
coal. With the chemical analysis and physical testing,
the bottom ash show unique properties that can be
applied in concrete. The study involved the high
capacity oven and normal equipment for testing of
concrete. The special concrete was produced by using
bottom ash as sand replacement and checked their
compressive strength. The compressive strength value
is taken from the normal temperature and other
exposed to 2000C. The concrete that been drying at
200ºC were found as the superior in compressive
strength followed by normal cure and drying for
100ºC. This shows high temperature drying may
produce higher early compressive strength.
Keywords--Drying method, compressive strength,
special concrete, bottom ash, properties
I. INTRODUCTION
In the peninsula Malaysia, there are 4 electric
power plants that use a coal as a power sources to
generate electricity. There are located in Perak,
Johor, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. The private
sector is built a 2100 MW capacity coal power
TABLE 1
THE TYPICAL PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF BOTTOM ASH [2]
Physical Property
Specific Gravity (SG)
Dry Density
Plasticity
Water Absorption
978-1-4673-0654-6/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
Fadhluhartini bt Muftah
Faculty of Civil Engineering
Universiti Teknologi Mara
Pahang, Malaysia
fadhlu@pahang.uitm.edu.my
plant in Johor and another private company group
is built another 1700 MW capacity plant in Negeri
Sembilan. The electric power plant in Perak is
using coal as raw material began operations in
September 2002 with a capacity of 2100 MW. This
raw coal was taken directly from Sarawak. The
coal also import high quality coal from Indonesia,
Australia, the United States, Canada and also
China. It will use 1.5 million tons of raw coal for
each year.
Coal is widely available throughout the world
because of the quality and quantity compare to
other fossil fuels. The use of coal for electric power
plants has increased due to the increase of
petroleum price and the decrease of its reserves.
From the process of electric coal power plant, two
major waste product can be produced and they are
fly ash and bottom ash. Bottom ash from electric
coal power plant is estimated to increase in the
developing country. The bottom ash is directly
collected from bottom of the furnace and dumped
on the big space area and fly ash is a waste product
from precipitator zone. The big space area known
as landfill area is now becoming limited. So, to
control fly ash and dust hovering in the
atmosphere, recipients electrostatics was built used
to trap 99% of ash and dust.
The production of coal combustion by-
product is produced in steam generating system [1].
TABLE 1 presents the physical properties of
bottom ash. The specific gravity (SG) of bottom
ash is around 2-3 and shows the higher carbon
content that ensuing in lower specific gravity.
Besides that, the bottom ash is not classified as
plasticity and low density material.
Bottom Ash
2.1 – 2.7
7.07 - 15.72 kN/m3(45 – 100 Ib/ft3)
None
0.8 – 2.0 %
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2012 International Conference on Innovation, Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR2012), Malacca, Malaysia :
21-22 May, 2012
Many investigator found that the bottom ash
has some cementaneous properties in which may
increasing the strength and long-term than concrete
with natural sand. The strength and drying
shrinkage of concretes with furnace bottom ash
(FBA) as sand replacement at 0%, 30%, 50%, 70%
and 100% by mass, were studied at fixed water–
cement ratios (W/C) and fixed slump ranges [3].
Besides that, the bottom ash is used as artificial
aggregate in concrete. Reference [4] reported the
bottom ash collected from Harbin Municipal Solid
Incinerator Plant as coarse aggregate replacement
in concrete has the same development trend with
ordinary concrete. Reference [5] conducted fine
and coarse aggregate replacement with percentages
of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% to normal sand and
gravel. Experimental result demonstrated that is
possible to partially replace fine aggregate with
bottom ash in concrete are to be subjected to high
temperature response [6]. Reference [7] studied the
effect of the bottom ash as fine aggregate
replacement (0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90
and 100%) in mortar or concrete on shrinkage
cracking. Reference [8] comparison studied of
properties concrete with the use river sand, crushed
fine stone (CFS), bottom ash and fine recycled
aggregate as fine aggregate. Bottom ash as coarse
aggregate replacement proportion rate has different
effects on compressive strength in different water
cement ratio [4].
Besides that, many researchers are studied
about effects of temperature on compressive
strength of concrete such as [9], [10], [11] and [12].
Concrete in construction sometimes must resist the
effects of high or elevated temperatures due to
natural hazards [12] and accidental fires [10]. In
fact, the amount of waste generated continues to
increase due to the increase of production and
population. The problem to find additional sites for
landfill area will become progressively more
difficult due to acute shortage of land as the pace of
Bottom Ash
Fig 1. Original bottom ash samples and sand
476
development. The landfill area also causes a
number of pollution and environmental problems.
Besides that, conventional construction material
depends on natural resources such as cement and
aggregate, which are now becoming scarce. In
order to overcome both of these problems, there is
a need to provide viable solution by reducing the
use of natural resources and reusing waste material
in concrete. Therefore, the study was initiated to
seek the alternative methods to safely reuse the
bottom ash in concrete. This will help to ease the
disposal costs, preserve land capacity, conserve the
dwindling supply of natural raw materials and
diminish potential environmental impacts. This
study explores the possibility and prospect of
bottom ash in special concrete to resists the high or
elevated temperature in drying as a way of
incorporating significant amount of bottom ash.
The drying method of the concrete with bottom ash
is very important to make sure the delays of the
production of concrete with suitable compressive
strength onsite are complete.
II. MATERIAL
Bottom ash was collected from the ash pond
of electric coal power plant. This bottom ash is Q –
DEJ + 10% Lati Coal type. Q – DEJ and Lati Coal
type are noted as the origin of the coal located in
Indonesia. Ash content in Q – DEJ and Lati was 10
– 13 % and 4% respectively. The Q – DEJ contain
high fly ash and bottom ash while Lati contain low
fly ash and high bottom ash. This bottom ash has
9.76 pH concentrations. The discharging method of
bottom ash was using circulating water and it is
free from salt and chloride. The bottom ash used is
directly applied into concrete without pre-
treatment. In Fig 1, the differences between
original bottom ash (dark grey) and natural sand
(brown) that has been clearly showed according to
their colour.
Sand
2012 International Conference on Innovation, Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR2012), Malacca, Malaysia :
21-22 May, 2012

III. EXPERIMENTAL WORK TABLE 2 show the comparison physical

properties data of bottom ash with natural sand.
A. Physical Properties

TABLE 2
THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF BOTTOM ASH AND NATURAL SAND

Properties Bottom Ash Natural Sand

Specific Gravity 1.84 2.66
Water Absorption 26.6% 1.3%

Specific gravity of bottom ash was determined
by in-house method and results an average specific
gravity is 1.84 while natural sand has higher
specific gravity of 2.66. The experimental specific
gravity is lower than result of TABLE 2. It was
shows that the bottom ash is 30% lighter than
natural sand and may producing lighter concrete.
However the bottom ash has higher water
absorption of 26.6% while natural sand is only
1.3%. Higher water absorption indicates that the
bottom ash has high porosity. The pores at the
surface particle of bottom ash affect the bond
between the aggregate and cement paste and may
reducing the strength of concrete. In general, high
water absorption may reduce the effective water
cement ratio hence results of loss of workability. It
was found during the slump test on fresh concrete
where the value of slump is decrease as the bottom
ash is increase.
B. Chemical Properties
Chemical composition of the bottom ash was
determined by using by X-ray fluorescence (XRF)
method on 500g coal. It was results as tabulated in
TABLE 3. In general the bottom ash is composed
of 39.4% and 34.3% of silica and alumina
respectively. The lost of ignition of 0.63. The
chemical properties are almost same as Ordinary
Portland Cement (OPC) hence it is suitable used in
concrete. Besides that, the bottom ash is compared
with bituminous coal, sub continuous coal and
lignite. The bottom ash is showed lower percentage
of silica and alumina.

TABLE 3
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF BOTTOM ASH AND CEMENT (OPC)

Sub
Lignite
Chemical Bottom Ash Cement (OPC) Bituminous Coal Bituminous
%
Composition Weight (%) (%) % (Mass)* Coal
(Mass)*
% (Mass)*
Silica, SiO2 39.4 20.6 61.0 46.75 70.0
Alumina, Al2O3 34.3 6.3 25.4 18.76 15.9
Iron Oxide,
15 3.6 6.6 5.91 2.0
Fe2O3
Titania, TiO2 3.08 - - - -
Magnesia, MgO 1.57 - 1.0 3.96 1.9
Calcium Oxide,
6.13 63 1.5 17.80 6.0
CaO
LOI at 1000C 0.63 - - - -

* Chemical Composition of Bottom Ash (Sources: [13])

The chemical oxides in cement consist mainly
of lime, silica, alumina and iron oxide and these
oxides have their function in concrete. When
compare with bottom ash, the chemical oxides are
similar to cement chemical oxides.
C. Physical Properties
1. Sieve Analysis
Aggregate grading is very important in
relation to the plastic properties and might effects
the properties in harden state. Physical properties
analysis conducted for bottom ash sample was
sieve analysed and fineness modulus was
determined. Bottom ash used to replace the fine
aggregate is passed through 5 mm sieve. Sieve
analyses of the natural sand and bottom ash sample
were carried out as per British Standard [14]. The
sample was initially sieved through 5mm in order
to identify the fine particles in the bottom ash. The
sieve grading is done by dry sieving using in-house
method and the results are tabulated in TABLE 4.

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2012 International Conference on Innovation, Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR2012), Malacca, Malaysia :
21-22 May, 2012

TABLE 4
SIEVE ANALYSIS OF BA

Cumulative Cumulative
Mass Cumulative Mass
BS sieve size percentage retained percentage passing
(kg) retained (kg)
(%) (%)
10 mm 0 0 0 100
5.00mm 0.5096 0.5096 12.56 87.44
3.35mm 0.4942 1.0038 24.74 75.26
2.00mm 0.4645 1.4683 36.18 63.82
1.18mm 0.4278 1.8961 46.72 53.28
600m 0.4095 2.3056 56.81 43.19
425m 0.3696 2.6752 65.92 34.08
300m 0.3669 3.0421 74.96 25.04
212m 0.3438 3.3859 83.43 16.57
150m 0.3391 3.7250 91.79 8.21
63m 0.3272 4.0522 99.85 0.15
0 0.0060 4.0582 - -
Total 4.0582 - 493.12 -

The results of sieve analysis of bottom ash
samples tabulated in Table 4 directly obtained the
fineness modules of the bottom ash. The fineness
modulus is the summation of the cumulative
percentage retained on the sieve standard series of
150, 300 and 600 μm, 1.18, 2.36, 5.0 mm up to the
larges sieve size used. The calculated of fineness
modulus of bottom ash is 4.93 which are more than
3.5 and it is considered very coarse. The
categorization given in [15] based on percentage
passing the 600m sieve which is 43.19%.
Therefore, the bottom ash sand is considered as
course to medium sand [16].
2. Specific Gravity and Water Absorption
Specific gravity of bottom was determined by
in-house method and results an average specific
gravity is 1.84 while natural sand has higher
specific gravity of 2.66. It was shows that the
bottom ash is 30% lighter than natural sand and
may producing lighter concrete. However the
bottom ash has higher water absorption of 26.6%
while natural sand is only 1.3%. Higher water
absorption indicates that the bottom ash has high
porosity. The pores at the surface particle of bottom
ash affect the bond between the aggregate and
cement paste and may reducing the strength of
concrete. Besides that, bottom ash has water
absorption higher than 2-3%, therefore it may need
to be treated as suspect and may influence to
concrete performance such as higher dry shrinkage
[16].
IV. MIXTURES AND DOSAGE
Five types of concrete were produced with the
substitution of bottom ash by weight into natural
sand in a various percentage of 60%, 70%, 80%,
90% and 100% and noted as M60, M70, M80,
M90, and M100 respectively. Control mix concrete
using 100% natural sand was produced for
comparing its relative strength. Material for control
mix as follows in TABLE 5 and the compositions
of concrete and bottom ash content as sand
replacement are tabulated in TABLE 6.

TABLE 5
DESIGN MIX OF THE SPECIAL CONCRETE

Ingredient Water Cement Sand Gravel

Density 210 kg/m3 403.85 kg/m3 686.34 kg/m3 1119.81 kg/m3

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2012 International Conference on Innovation, Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR2012), Malacca, Malaysia :
21-22 May, 2012

TABLE 6
MIX DETAIL OF SPECIAL CONCRETE

Concrete Mix Cement (kg) Bottom Ash (kg) Natural Sand (kg) Gravel (kg) Water (kg)
Control mix 28.62 0 48.64 79.37 14.88
M60 28.62 29.18 19.46 79.37 14.88
M70 28.62 34.05 14.59 79.37 14.88
M80 28.62 38.91 9.73 79.37 14.88
M90 28.62 43.78 4.86 79.37 14.88
M100 28.62 48.64 0 79.37 14.88

V. SAMPLE PREPARATION AND VI. COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH

TESTING
The compressive strengths were obtained for
all concrete at 3 days for three different type of
curing with three samples per curing method to
obtain the average value. Standard cube specimen
sizes of 150 mm x 150 mm x 150 mm were used in
confirmative. The sample were exposed to constant
temperature (24 ± 2 ºC) and constant relative
humidity (95 ± 5 ºC) environment inside curing
tank until the tested ages. At 24 hours after the
concrete casting, the moulds were removing and
the samples were kept into the curing tank for
normal curing, 100 ºC heating, and 200 ºC heating
in oven for 24 hours. The weights of samples were
recorded to measure amount of water absorption by
capillary and determining the mass difference
during the time interval of 1 day to 3 days.
The temperature effects on concrete with
bottom ash are shown in Fig. 2. Generally, as the
BA percentage replacements are increase, the early
strengths of concrete were decrease. The strengths
were drastically decreased for 70 % replacement of
BA for all kind of drying method. 80% of BA
replacement was found as optimum replacement
where all strengths were slightly increased. All
strengths behaviour for 80 % to fully BA
replacements was found similar for all type of
drying method. The concrete that been drying at
200ºC were found as the superior in compressive
strength followed by normal cure and drying for
100ºC. This shows high temperature drying may
produce higher early compressive strength. It may
happen due to the nature of material where BA is
by product of heat activity. Therefore fire may
enhance its physical properties hence improve the
compressive strength of concrete.

Fig 2. Early compressive strength of special concrete with bottom ash

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2012 International Conference on Innovation, Management and Technology Research (ICIMTR2012), Malacca, Malaysia :
21-22 May, 2012
VII. CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATION
60% BA replacement is showed high compressive
strength when compared with other percentage of
replacement. 80% BA replacement has found as
optimum replacement where the strength is
increase for normal curing or drying method. When
compared with 60% BA replacement, 80% BA
replacement are illustrated 34.3%, 25.67% and
9.04% with drying 2000C, 1000C and normal curing
respectively. Furthermore, 200ºC has improved the
early compressive strength of concrete with BA
compared to normal curing due to physical
properties of BA. Finally, the study can be
concluded that by product of heat activity may
expose to high temperature at early drying age of
concrete.
The following recommendation can be made from
the study such as the testing of concrete with BA at
elevated temperature for matured concrete should
be conducted. This is because of the effect of fire
hazard on concrete during it design life. Besides
that, the strength of 7 and 28 days must be
conducted to investigate the drying effect on
matured concrete with partial or full percentage
replacement of BA.
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