Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015

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Environmental Challenges
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envc

Untreated rice husk ash incorporated high strength self-compacting

concrete: Properties and environmental impact assessments
Mathavanayakam Sathurshan a, Ishanka Yapa a, Julian Thamboo a, Thuraisingam Jeyakaran a,
Satheeskumar Navaratnam b,∗, Rafat Siddique c, Jingxuan Zhang b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, 32360 Oluvil, Sri Lanka
b
School of Engineering, RMIT University, 3001 Melbourne, Australia
c
Department of Civil Engineering, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala 147004, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: The suitability of untreated rice husk ash (URHA) as a supplementary to the ordinary Portland cement (OPC)
Self compacting concrete and fine aggregates (FA) in high strength self-compacting concrete (SCC) was investigated in terms of mechan-
Rice hush ash ical properties as well as environmental impact assessments (EIA). In total, nine SCC mixes were prepared and
High strength concrete
investigated with various levels of URHA replacements to OPC and FA. Initially, the fresh and hardened proper-
Compressive strength
ties of URHA incorporated SCC were determined. Further, EIAs were carried out considering eighteen different
Tensile Strength
Life-cycle analyses environmental impact indices for the optimum URHA incorporated SCC mixes to determine the most appropriate
mix in terms of mechanical properties along with their environmental impacts. The experimental results reveal,
URHA in the range of 10–15% can be used without compromising the fresh and hardened properties of SCC. The
results of the EIAs are presented and discussed in terms of compressive strength to environmental indices ratios
to normalise the comparison. The EIAs disclose that even through some of the mixes provide better performance
in terms of certain environmental impact categories; especially CO2 emission, water pollution (fresh and marine)
and ecotoxicity, their strength to environmental impact ratios are relatively low. Thus, it is recommended to
select the optimum mix design of URHA incorporated high strength SCC in terms of mechanical properties and
as well as EIA.

1. Introduction generation in many rice producing countries and significant quantity of

Conventional concrete production process requires extensive
amounts of natural resources and thereby causing substantial energy
ingestion, subsequently lead to many environmental issues. The av-
erage global warming potential of 1 kg of aggregate and cement are
around 0.012 kg CO2 -eq and 981 kg CO2 -eq, respectively (de Brito
and Kurda, 2020). In 2018 alone, the total usage of aggregate (fine
and course) and cement were around 48.3 billion tonnes and 4.1 bil-
lion tonnes, respectively (de Brito and Kurda, 2020). Therefore, to al-
leviate the impact of the concrete production to the environment, re-
search studies have been focused towards developing more sustainable
concrete from waste materials with less energy consumption. Subse-
quently, supplementary cementitious materials instead of Ordinary Port-
land Cement (OPC) have been incorporated into the production of con-
crete through extensive research studies (Juenger and Siddique, 2015;
Qin et al., 2019). Rice husk ash (RHA) is one such supplementary cemen-
titious material that can be used in concrete as an alternative to OPC.
Largely, RHA is produced by burning rice husks during biomass energy
the RHA is sent to landfill sites without any value addition.
Consequently, the use of RHA as a supplementary cementitious ma-
terial in concrete production has been researched well in the past.
The chemical and physical characteristics of RHA differ due to the dif-
ferences in the type of rice husks, rate of burning, and fineness (Bui
et al., 2005; Ganesan et al., 2008; Nair et al., 2008). Subsequently,
highly reactive RHA can be achieved when it is scalded under controlled
environment in which the RHA accounts high silica content in the form
of amorphous up to 85–95% (Cordeiro et al., 2009; Darsanasiri et al.,
2018; Tharshika et al., 2019). However, controlling the burning tem-
perature in biomass energy generation is very challenging process and
the RHA produced in uncontrolled burning conditions would have rel-
atively higher carbon content and less pozzolanic reactively. Therefore,
the RHA is further processed by grinding to make it finer to increase the
reactively (Chao-Lung et al., 2011; Venkatanarayannan and Rangraju,
2015). While this process would increase the reactively of the RHA, it
consumes extra energy and cost in the production of RHA incorporated
concrete. Thus, directly using the untreated rice husk ash (URHA) as

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sathees.nava@rmit.edu.au, newthees@live.co.uk (S. Navaratnam).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2020.100015
Received 16 November 2020; Received in revised form 18 December 2020; Accepted 19 December 2020
2667-0100/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al. Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015

cementitious material in concrete needs methodical investigation. Sub- Table 1

sequently, several studies were conducted to investigate the influences Chemical compositions of OPC and URHA from XRF.
of incorporating URHA in concrete as a supplementary cementitious ma- Elements Mass % in OPC Mass % in RHA
terial (Ahsan and Hossain, 2018; Bie et al., 2015; Padhi et al., 2018;
SiO2 20.4 74.4
Pakravan et al., 2018; Siddique et al., 2016; Thomas, 2018).
Al2 O3 6.1 –
Nowadays, Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) is widely used in many K2 O 0.5 5.1
construction projects, as it can be placed and consolidated without any CaO 65.9 3.9
vibration. Furthermore, SCC has many other advantages over conven- Fe2 O3 3.9 3.9
SO3 1.3 0.7
tional concrete, including (1) reducing time taken to pour concrete and
TiO2 – 0.7
labour cost, (2) facilitate to fill in congested sections, (3) improving MgO 0.6 0.8
the bonding between cement paste and aggregate/reinforcement; and LOI 1.2 10.5
(4) thereby improving the durability of the concrete (Domone, 2007;
Sharifi et al., 2020; Shi et al., 2015; Sua-iam and Makul, 2013a). Con-
sequently, few research studies have been dedicated to investigate the
fresh and hardened characteristics of SCC made with supplementary ce-
mentitious materials, especially using RHA in the past (Kannan, 2018;
Kannan and Ganesan, 2014; Lertwattanaruk et al., 2018; Makul and Sua-
iam, 2018; Memon et al., 2011; Molaei Raisi et al., 2018; Rahman et al.,
2014; Safari et al., 2018; Safiuddin et al., 2012; Sandhu and Sid-
dique, 2017; Sua-iam and Makul, 2013b; Sua-iam et al., 2019).
Hitherto, few studies have been dedicated to assess the suitability
of RHA/URHA in the SCC mix preparation in terms of fresh and hard-
ened properties, where most of the studies revealed that the incorpo-
ration of 10–25% of URHA can be made, without compromising the
fresh and hardened properties of SCC (Chopra et al., 2015; Le and Lud-
wig, 2016; Safiuddin et al., 2010). Further few more studies have been
reported on the incorporation of URHA as a partial replacement to fine
aggregate (FA) (Ameri et al., 2019; Safiuddin et al., 2012; Sua-iam and
Makul, 2014; Sua-iam et al., 2016). However, all of these studies have
been focused on determine the mechanical properties of SCC, thus their
Fig. 1. PSD of OPC and URHA.
mix preparations are mainly aimed at achieving the desired fresh and
target hardened properties. The suitability of URHA incorporated SCC
in terms of environmental impact and as well as mechanical proper-
2.1. Materials
ties is overlooked in the past studies. Also the treated RHA by grinding
the particles would add to the embedded energy of concrete production,
2.1.1. OPC
where it would subsequently hamper the concept of sustainable concrete
The OPC used in this investigation was categorised as CEM I 42.5 N
production with waste supplementary materials. Therefore, with grow-
of BS EN 197–1 (BSI, 2011a). The specific gravity, fineness and specific
ing concern about the environmental impact of using concrete, such as
surface of the OPC used were 3.15, 10% and 350 m2 /kg respectively.
substantial CO2 emission, water pollution (fresh and marine) and eco-
The X-ray florescence (XRF) analysis was conducted to determine the
toxicity, the mix design prepared of SCC should not only meet the target
chemical composition of the OPC and detailed in Table 1. Moreover,
fresh and hardened properties, however also made such a way, it should
laser diffraction method as according to ISO 13,320–1 (ISO, 2020) was
alleviate the environmental impact (Hong et al., 2012).
employed to characterise the particle size distribution (PSD) of OPC and
Therefore, the objectives of this research can be divided in two sec-
results is presented in Fig. 1.
tions (1) conduct comprehensive experimental investigation on deter-
mining the fresh and hardened properties of URHA incorporated high
strength SCC and (2) compare the sustainability of URHA incorporated 2.1.2. URHA
SCC in terms of environmental impact assessment (EIA). Subsequently, The URHA was acquired from the biomass energy power plant, “Bio
to achieve these objectives, initially the constitutive materials used for Energy Solution (Pvt) Ltd”, in Ampara district, Sri Lanka. The rice husk
SCC were experimentally characterised. Thereafter, an experimental was incinerated about 600–800 °C temperature with low levels of oxy-
programme was conducted to examine the fresh and hardened proper- gen (partial oxidation) in the power plant that produced URHA as a
ties of URHA incorporated concrete. The variables considered were the by-product. No further treatment was carried out for URHA. In order to
level of substitution of URHA instead of OPC and FA, and age of test- characterise the URHA, PSD, XRF, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scan-
ing (7, 14 and 28 days). Especially, the fresh properties such as consis- ning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analyses were carried out. The PSD of
tency, passing ability, filling ability and segregation resistance were ex- the URHA used in this research is shown in Fig. 1. It can be noted that
amined. Furthermore, the compressive strengths, tensile strengths, dy- the URHA is coarser than the OPC, where the particle sizes of URHA
namic moduli, static moduli and stress–strain responses under compres- varies between 80 and 600 μm. Further, the chemical composition and
sion were investigated as hardened properties. Finally, the sustainability mineral phase of URHA were studied through XRF and XRD analyses.
of the URHA incorporated high strength SCC mixes were investigated The chemical composition of URHA is compared along with OPC and
using EIAs. presented in Table 1. The XRF analysis indicates that the URHA con-
tains about 74% of SiO2 .
Further the XRD analysis of URHA is presented in Fig. 2. The struc-
2. Experimental programme ture of silica present in the URHA is in amorphous nature having a dif-
fused peak of 80 counts at about 𝜃 = 22° in XRD. Moreover, the SEM
The characterisation of constitutive materials used in the concrete image of URHA used in this research is shown in Fig. 3. The SEM ob-
mixes, mix designs adopted, fresh and hardened property testing proce- servations revealed that the URHA contains angular and micro-porous
dures followed are explained in the following sections. structure with a variety of particle sizes and multilayers.

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M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al.
Fig. 2. XRD analysis of URHA.
Fig. 3. SEM image of URHA.
2.1.3. Fine and coarse aggregates
River sand and crushed stones were used as the fine and coarse ag-
gregates respectively, in the SCC mixes. The river sand was sieved by a
4.75 mm sieve, whereas the coarse aggregate was sieved by a 16 mm
sieve as per ASTM C136 / C136M – 19 (ASTM, 2019b). The PSD curves
of the fine and coarse aggregates are shown in Fig. 4. The determined
specific gravities of the fine and coarse aggregates were 2.67 and 2.74,
respectively.
2.1.4. Admixture
A high range water reducing admixture (HRWR) was used to pre-
pare the SCC mixes. The used admixture was a high-performance super
plasticizer based on polycarboxylic ether, which complies ASTM C494
(ASTM, 2019a) Type F. The specific gravity of the admixture was 1.08,
as per the manufacturer’s data sheet.
2.2. Mix design and testing methods
In total, nine SCC mixes were trialled as presented in Table 2.
The trial mix designs were carried out according to the ACI-211.4R-93
(ACI, 1993) and EFNARC (EFNARC, 2005) methods. The water to binder
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Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015
Fig. 4. PSD of fine and coarse aggregates.
ratio (w/b) was kept as 0.34 for all mixes. The target slump was cho-
sen between 75 mm −100 mm without considering admixture content
in SCC. However, HRWR was used in order to achieve the slump flow
around 600 mm and V-funnel range between 6 and 12 s. The designed
air-entrained was kept as 2%. In all the mixes, the coarse aggregates
(830 Kg/m3 ) and water (171.3 Kg/m3 ) contents were kept unchanged.
Subsequently, the concrete mixes were prepared by partially replacing
the OPC and FA by URHA. The OPC was replaced by URHA with the
mass percentages of 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25%. Further, three sets
of concrete mixes were trialled to evaluate the influence of URHA sub-
stitution to the FA at levels of 10%, 15% and 20%. For each mix com-
bination, eighteen cylindrical (100 mm diameter and 200 mm height)
SCC specimens were made to verify the hardened properties. Further-
more, samples were named as C-URHA-(0–25) for OPC replaced mixes,
whereas FA replaced samples were named as FA-URHA-(0–20), where
last digits (0–25) refer to the percentage of URHA replacement in the
SCC mixes.
2.3. Testing methods
In order to prepare the SCC mixes, initially coarse aggregates and fine
aggregates were mixed. Then the binders (OPC + URHA) were added.
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al. Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015

Table 2
Details of mix proportion for SCC.

Mix w/b URHA (%) Cement (kg/m3 ) URHA (kg/m3 ) Water (kg/m3 ) CA (kg/m3 ) FA (kg/m3 ) HRWR (%)

C-URHA-0 0.34 – 500 – 171 830 925 1.2

C-URHA-5 0.34 5 475 25.0 171 830 925 1.4
C-URHA-10 0.34 10 450 50.0 171 830 925 1.6
C-URHA-15 0.34 15 425 75.0 171 830 925 1.9
C-URHA-20 0.34 20 400 100.0 171 830 925 2.3
C-URHA-25 0.34 25 375 125.0 171 830 925 3.4
FA-URHA-10 0.34 10 500 92.5 171 830 832 2.3
FA-URHA-15 0.34 15 500 138.7 171 830 786 3.3
FA-URHA-20 0.34 20 500 184.9 171 830 740 4.4

Fig. 5. Testing of fresh properties of SCC: (a)

Slump flow; (b) J ring; (c) V-funnel; (d) L box;
and (e) Air entrainment.

Afterwards, three-quarter of required water was added and mixed for
about two minutes. Thereafter, the mixer was turned off for about two
minutes to allow water to be absorbed by the ingredients before adding
the admixture. Subsequently, the admixture was mixed with remaining
water and added to the mix. Then the mixing progress was continued
for about four minutes. Afterwards the mixer was kept in rest for one
minute. Finally, the homogenised SCC mix was used for the testing of
fresh properties and casting the cylindrical samples.
2.3.1. Testing of fresh properties
Fresh properties of the samples were tested in order to satisfy the four
main fresh state requirements of SCC; there are consistency, passing abil-
ity, filling ability and segregation resistance. Test procedures and accept-
able ranges of test results mentioned in EFNARC (EFNARC, 2005) were
followed to determine the fresh state properties. Subsequently, Slump
flow, T500 slump flow, J ring, V funnel and L box tests were conducted
to verify the consistency, passing ability, filling ability and segregation
resistance of prepared SCC mixes. Fig. 5 shows the testing of fresh prop-
erties of SCC. It was noted that increase in URHA percentage in the SCC
mixes, required additional admixture content to be added to maintain
the fresh state properties similar to control mix. The admixture dosages
used in all the mixes are given in Table 2. It has to be mentioned that,
even though relatively higher super plasticizer dosages were added in
the URHA incorporated mixes, no delayed settings were observed.
Furthermore, the air entrainment and the fresh density of the
SCC mixtures were evaluated based on the ASTM C231 / C231M-17a
(ASTM, 2017a) and ASTM C138 / C138M-17a (ASTM, 2017b) proce-
dures, respectively. A pressure metre was used to determine the air en-
trainment of the mixes as shown in Fig. 5(e).
2.3.2. Testing of hardened properties
Hardened properties of the SCC mixtures were measured through
casting and testing of eighteen concrete cylinders for each combination.
The casted cylinder specimens were allowed to cure in a curing water
tank until they are tested. Most of the previous studies concluded that
the RHA incorporated concrete develop relatively higher strength in the
ages more than 28 days of casting. However, in this research an attempt
was made to determine the early age strength properties. Consequently,
the hardened properties were determined at 7, 14 and 28 days after cast-
ing. In total, 162 cylinder samples were made to evaluate the hardened
properties of SCC.
Out of eighteen cylinders casted in each mix combinations, nine
cylinders were used to determine the compressive strength and rest
were used to evaluate the splitting tensile strength of the trialled mixes.
The compressive and splitting tensile strengths were derived based on
the ASTM C39 / C39M-20 (ASTM, 2020) and ASTM C496 / C496M-17
(ASTM, 2017c), respectively and shown in Fig. 6(a) and (b). A 1500 kN
capacity compression testing machine was used to carry out the com-
pression and splitting tensile tests. An extensometer was attached to the
cylinders to determine the axial deformation of the hardened SCC cylin-
ders. The axial deformation and load recordings were converted into
compressive stress–strain curves. Subsequently, elastic moduli were de-
rived using the axial compression stress–strain curves. Furthermore, as
shown in Fig. 6(c), the casted concrete cylinders were used to deter-

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M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al. Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015

Fig. 6. Testing of hardened properties: (a)

compression testing; (b) splitting tensile test;
and (c) UPV test.

Table 3
Fresh properties of the mixes trialled.

Mix Slump flow (mm) T500 slump flow (s) J-ring (mm) J ring slump flow (mm) V-funnel (s) L-box Air-entrainment % Density (kg/m3 )

C-URHA-0 725 (1.3) 3.46 5.0 715 9.23 0.94 2.0 (5.0) 2431
C-URHA-5 710 (0.9) 4.23 8.0 705 11.70 0.94 2.1(7.8) 2457
C-URHA-10 720 (0.6) 3.84 7.5 710 10.72 0.94 2.1 (4.6) 2431
C-URHA-15 690 (5.1) 3.65 8.5 685 8.47 0.94 1.9 (0.8) 2400
C-URHA-20 725 (2.0) 4.02 5.0 710 10.39 1.00 1.9 (5.3) 2393
C-URHA-25 715 (1.4) 5.11 10.5 705 16.25 0.94 1.8 (5.6) 2400
FA-URHA-10 725 (0.7) 3.86 7.0 710 10.87 0.98 1.9 (0.8) 2387
FA-URHA-15 695 (0.9) 4.80 5.0 685 11.08 0.93 1.7 (7.5) 2400
FA-URHA-20 735 (0.8) 5.23 6.0 715 14.55 0.94 1.4 (0.5) 2393.

Fig. 7. Slump measurements of the URHA-SCC mixes.
mine the dynamic moduli using ultra-pulse velocity (UPV) testing as
per ASTM C597–16 (ASTM, 2016).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Fresh properties
The measured fresh properties of the URHA incorporated SCC mixes
are presented in Table 3 with the coefficient of variations (COV) within
the parentheses. Table 3 illustrates that the slump flow did not vary
considerably with the change in URHA content in SCC. Therefore, the
addition of admixture above the recommended dosage was effective to
achieve the desirable slump values in to URHA incorporated SCC mixes
trialled (Fig. 7). However, higher dosages of admixtures had to be added
to maintain the desired slump as the addition of URHA made the con-
crete more viscous due to increasing fraction and high surface area char-
acteristics of URHA (Safiuddin et al., 2012). The T500 slump flow indi-
cates the filling ability of the SCC mixture. All the T500 slump flow times
were within EFNARC (EFNARC, 2005) guidelines (i.e. between 2 and
5 s) except the mixes C-URHA-25 and FA-URHA-20.
The passing ability of the SCC mixtures were evaluated through J-
ring tests. The acceptable range of J ring test result as per EFNARC
(EFNARC, 2005) is 0–10 mm. The measured J-ring slump flow diam-
eters of the trialled SCC mixes varied between 685 mm to 715 mm.
Subsequently, when compared with corresponding conventional slump
flow values, the J-ring slump flows were only 5 mm to 25 mm less,
therefore it can be said that the prepared mixes show relatively good
passing ability.
The V funnel flow indicates the filling ability of SCC, which should
be in the range of 6–12 s as per EFNARC (EFNARC, 2005). Table 3 shows
that the V funnel flow of trialled SCC mixes are within the recommended
range, except C-URHA-25 and FA-URHA-20. Sua-iam et al. (2016) also
found similar behaviour for FA replaced at level of 20% mix. Subse-
quently, it was reported that increasing the water content in SCC would
yield an acceptable range for V funnel test, however it would affect the
strength properties of SCC.
The L box test was also carried out to evaluate the filling ability and
passing ability of SCC mix. The L box test result provides the block-
ing ratio and it should be in the range of 0.8–1.0 for SCC mix and to
fulfil the self-compacting requirements (EFNARC, 2005). In this study,
three vertical reinforcement arrangements were used in order to find the
blocking ratio. It was observed that, without increasing the admixture,
the acceptable blocking ratio was obtained for the mixes, when URHA
replacement was up to 10% by mass of OPC. For rest of the mixes the
target L box blocking ratio was achieved by changing the admixture
content.
Furthermore, the control SCC mix was designed allowing 2% air en-
trainment. Accordingly, air entrainment values of the SCC mixes pre-
pared by incorporating URHA as supplementary to OPC and FA vary
between 1.8% −2.1% and 1.4%−1.9% respectively. Thus, it indicates
that the incorporation of URHA instead of OPC and fine aggregate
did not affect the air entrainment. Further, it can also be noted from
Table 3, that the increasing amount of URHA presence in SCC mix
slightly reduced the fresh density of the mixes.

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M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al. Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015

Fig. 8. Variation of cylindrical compressive strengths.

Fig. 9. Variation of splitting tensile strength.

Fig. 10. Variation of dynamic modulus of elasticity of SCC incorporating URHA.

6
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al.
Fig. 11. Compressive stress–strain response of URHA incorporated SCC concretes.
3.2. Hardened properties
The mean compressive strengths of the URHA incorporated SCC
cylinders are presented in Fig. 8. It can be obviously seen that the com-
pressive strength increases with the age of testing. The 28 day compres-
sive strengths varied between 47.7 MPa to 81.0 MPa for the SCC mixes
trialled. Among the mixes tested, the compressive strength increased
7
Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015
Fig. 12. Variation of static elastic moduli of
SCC incorporating URHA.
with the substitution of URHA for OPC up to 15% and further incor-
poration of URHA reduced the compressive strength than the control
specimen (i.e. C-URHA-0). The compressive strength of C-URHA-15 is
about 20% higher than the control C-URHA-0 specimen. The increase
in compressive strength of URHA incorporated SCC is generally due to
micro filling ability and high pozzolanic reactivity of URHA. However,
decrease in the compressive strength beyond 15% of URHA substitu-
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al.
tion was mainly due to excess amorphous silica available for hydration
reaction and as a result the excess URHA acted like an inert in the SCC.
Further, substitution of URHA instead of FA about 10% (i.e. FA-
URHA-10) also increased the compressive strength of the SCC compared
to control specimen. The FA-URHA-10 provided the highest compres-
sive strength of 81.0 MPa. However, replacement of URHA instead of
FA more than 10% reduced the compressive strength. The improvement
in compressive strength was due to micro filling ability of URHA. The
URHA filled the voids in SCC and it improved the compressive strength
of SCC. The pozzolanic activity of URHA along with OPC, which was
replaced instead of FA was another reason for increasing of the com-
pressive strength. Further increment of URHA levels show reduction
in compressive strength due to excessive presence of amorphous silica
available for hydration reaction in SCC mixes.
The mean splitting tensile strengths of the URHA incorporated SCC
are presented in Fig. 9. The variation of splitting tensile strengths of
the URHA-SCC specimens showed similar pattern as observed in com-
pressive strengths. The highest splitting tensile strengths were exhibited
at 15% replacement of URHA instead of OPC and 10% replacement of
URHA in place of FA URHA. The 28 days splitting tensile strengths of all
the SCC specimens varied from 5.1 MPa to 7.1 MPa. F-URHA-10 spec-
imens exhibited highest splitting tensile strength than all other speci-
mens, which was an increase of 29% than the control mix.
Dynamic modulus of elasticity was calculated using the UPV values
obtained from the cylindrical SCC samples. The UPV test was conducted
at the ages of 7 days, 14 days and 28 days. Fig. 10 shows that the dy-
namic modules of the SCC concrete follow similar pattern as observed in
the compressive strength results. The dynamic moduli varied between
37.3 MPa to 80.5 MPa for the mixes tested. The highest dynamic mod-
ulus was obtained for FA-URHA-10 mix at 28 days.
The unconfined compression stress–strain behaviour of URHA in-
corporated SCC were evaluated from the axial load-displacement re-
sponses obtained during the compression testing. The measured axial
displacements from extensometers were divided by the gauge length
(i.e. 100 mm) to calculate the axial strain values and the matching stress
values from the load recording were coordinated to plot the stress–strain
curves. The average stress–strain curves are presented in Fig. 11.
Primarily, the axial compression stress–strain curves of concrete
samples can be divided into two portions (1) ascending and (2) descend-
ing. It can be obviously observed that all the compressive stress–strain
curves of the SCC mixes display similar ascending and descending por-
tions. The ascending portion is usually linear till 0.8–0.9 times of the
peak stress and becomes nonlinear up to peak stress. Mainly the non-
linear portion of the ascending portion is associated with beginning of
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Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015
Fig. 13. System boundary of the EIA study of
eight SCC mix designs.
vertical cracks in the cylinders. However, it can be noted that the de-
scending portions of these relatively high strength SCCs are short in na-
ture and the failure of the cylinders were associated with brittle cracking
with large noise and sudden drop in the stress with the slight increase in
axial strain. The brittle failure phenomenon in relatively high strength
concrete specimens is well documented in the literature (Belén et al.,
2011; Hsu and Hsu, 1994; Kristombu Baduge et al., 2018; Lakshani
et al., 2020). Subsequently, the responses recorded in the URHA incor-
porated SCC specimens in the testing are justified.
Consequently, elastic modulus was calculated from the stress–strain
curves obtained as per the methodology outlined in ASTM C469 /
C469M – 14 (ASTM, 2014) and presented in Fig. 12. The variations of
static elastic moduli of the tested SCC mixes are similar to the variations
of compressive strengths, tensile strengths and dynamic moduli. Subse-
quently, the static elastic moduli varied between 25.3 MPa to 72.8 MPa
for the mixes tested.
4. Sustainability of SCC incorporating URHA
The fresh and hardened properties of URHA incorporated SCC mixes
trialled in this research indicate that the maximum of 15% of OPC or
10% of FA can be replaced by URHA. Nevertheless, quite similar find-
ings were reported in the past, where it was concluded that an opti-
mum percentage in the range of 10–25% URHA can be incorporated
into the SCC (Chopra et al., 2015; Gill and Siddique, 2017; Sua-iam and
Makul, 2014). However, it has to be highlighted that the mix design
used to prepare those URHA incorporated SCC vary among the studies
reported and subsequently their strength properties reported are not di-
rectly comparable. Thus, it can be stated, while different studies have
reported on the fresh and hardened properties of URHA-SCC, the ver-
ification of most appropriate mix in terms of strength properties and
sustainability are not well investigated in the past. Therefore, in this
section, the environmental impact assessments (EIA) were carried out
for the optimum URHA-SCC mix obtained in this research and from the
selected mixes trialled in the past studies. Consequently, a most appro-
priate URHA-SCC mix can be determined in terms of strength and sus-
tainable characteristics.
In total, eight URHA incorporated SCC mix proportions were selected
for the EIAs. Table 4 outlines the optimum mix proportions obtained in
this research and from past studies, where similar URHA incorporated
high strength SCC mixes were investigated. It can be noted that the mix
proportions used to prepare URHA incorporated SCC vary among the
selected studies for EIA. Further, to compare the EIA with the fresh and
hardened properties of these mixes, their slump values and the 28th day
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al. Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015

Table 4
URHA incorporated SCC mixes used for the EIA.

Reference Mix notation Mix proportions per 1 m3 SCC Properties

Cement (kg) RHA/ URHA (kg) FA (kg) CA (kg) Admixture Slump (mm) Compressive Strength (MPa)

(Safiuddin et al., 2010) C30RHA15 419 74 826 830 8.6 735 87.6
(Safiuddin et al., 2010) C35RHA15 359 63 858 862 5.9 720 78.6
(Safiuddin et al., 2010) C40RHA15 314 55 882 886 3.7 680 65.7
(Memon et al., 2011) 10R4 500 50 875 750 20.0 660 41.4
(Kannan and Ganesan, 2014) RHA15 340 60 880 800 8.0 615 51.0
(Chopra et al., 2015) 15RHA 468 83 910 590 5.5 670 49.5
(Kannan, 2018) CS-R3 323 57 755 685 7.6 780 39.0
Present study C-URHA-15 425 75 924 830 9.4 690 76.9

Fig. 14. Summary of EIA of selected eight SCC

mixes.

compressive strengths reported were gathered and presented in Table 4.
It has to be mentioned that, these two properties were invariably deter-
mined in all the eight studies considered, thus taken for the comparison.
The method of EIA framework developed in this study follows the
principles outlined in AS ISO 14,040:2019 (Standards Australia, 2019)
and EN 15,978 (BSI, 2011b) and shown in Fig 13. The EIA starts with the
impact evaluation of raw material processing and ends with the trans-
portation of the final products. The analyses include cement production,
aggregate excavation, water supply and source material into considera-
tion during the material extraction stages. The transportation of mate-
rials was also included in the EIA. Finally, the transportation of the SCC
to an idealised client was taken in to account for the total EIA calcu-
lations. The primary data used for the material extraction stage comes
mainly from the SimaPro database (SimaPro, 2019), including cement
production, aggregates excavation, and water supply. The distances of
the transported materials have been considered based on the locality
of the location of this study, where the cement, fine aggregate, course
aggregate and URHA were considered to be transported from 300 km,
20 km, 75 km and 5 km respectively. In the production stage, the energy
consumption of the SCC mix production of 1 m3 was taken as 3 kWh as
per electricity consumption in the local context, where the time taken
to mix 1 m3 of concrete in plant/mixer was considered and converted
to required energy consumed in mixing. Subsequently, the delivery dis-
tance of the prepared SCC was assumed within 50 km radius from the
study deliberated.
The impact assessment was generated with the EIA software SimaPro
using ReciPe Midpoint (H)/ World Recipe H method (Colangelo
et al., 2018; Jayalath et al., 2020; Pushkar, 2019). This method
has the broadest set of midpoint categories and generates eighteen
midpoint impact categories. Which are: climate change (kg of CO2 );
Ozone depletion (kg of trichlorofluoromethane, i.e. CFC-11); terrestrial
acidification (kg of SO2 ); freshwater eutrophication (kg of phospho-
rum), marine eutrophication (kg of nitrogen); human toxicity (kg of
dichlorobenzene); photochemical oxidant formation potential (kg of
non-methane volatile organic compounds, i.e. NMVOC); particulate
matter formation (kg); terrestrial ecotoxicity (kg of 4-dichlorobenzene);

9
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al.
Table A1
Summary of EIA of eight SCC-URHA mixes with the strength ratios.
freshwater ecotoxicity (kg of 4-dichlorobenzene); marine ecotoxicity
(kg of 4-dichlorobenzene); Ionising radiation (kNq of uranium-235);
agricultural land occupation (m2 ); urban land occupation (m2 ); nature
land transformation (m2 ); water depletion (m3 ); metal depletion (kg of
iron, i.e. Fe); and fossil depletion Kg).
4.1. Results of EIA
Fig. 14 shows the outcome of the characterisation of the eighteen
midpoint impact categories of the eight SCC mixes considered. It can
be noted that the mix 10R4 has shown the highest impact in the EIA
categories of climate change, Ozone depletion, marine eutrophication,
photochemical oxidant formation, terrestrial ecotoxicity, agricultural
land occupation, nature land transformation, urban land occupation
and fossil depletion. Whilst, the mix C40RHA15 has shown the lowest
impact in those nine categories. Further, in terms of the terrestrial
acidification, freshwater eutrophication, particulate matter formation,
freshwater ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, ionising radiation and
metal depletion, the mixes 15RHA and C40RHA15 have shown the
highest and lowest impacts, respectively. Moreover, the human toxicity
indicator shows that the mix 15RHA has the highest impact and the
lowest impact was found from the mix CS-R3. The results for water
depletion EIA have shown that the mix 15RHA has the highest impact
(2.2 m3 ) and the lowest impact was given by the mix C40RHA15 (1.49
m3 ). Thus, the EIAs indicate that the environmental impact of 10R4
and 15RHA mixes are consistently higher and the C40RHA15 mix has
shown the lowest impact in many of the categories considered.
Further, in order to compare the strength performance with the en-
vironmental impact of the mixes, the calculated environmental impact
values of each category were divided by the compressive strength re-
10
Environmental Challenges 2 (2021) 100015
ported in each mix considered. Therefore, the strength to relevant envi-
ronmental impact category ratio indicates the effective performance of
the mixes, where the highest ratio indicates the relatively high strength
with lowest environmental impact, whereas the lowest ratio implies the
relatively low strength with higher environmental impact. The complete
EIA data and the calculated ratios are presented in Table A1 in the Ap-
pendix. Subsequently one can note that the mixes C35RHA15 and 10R4
have shown the highest and lowest ratios respectively in most of the
categories considered, where some other mixes (e.g. C-URHA-15 and
15RHA) have depicted exceptions in one or two categories. Thus, it can
be said that, while the C40RHA15 have shown the lowest environmen-
tal impact, however when compared with the strength performance, the
mix C35RHA15 is shown to be the most optimum, where it has moder-
ate level of environmental impact with relatively higher compressive
strength. Hence EIAs have facilitated to determine the most effective
mix based on the strength and environmental impact indices.
5. Summary and conclusions
The suitability of URHA as supplementary to the OPC and FA in high
strength SCC production was investigated through extensive experimen-
tal studies and EIA in this research. In total, nine URHA incorporated
SCC mixes were prepared and their fresh and hardened properties were
tested. Further, in order to verify the most appropriate SCC mix in terms
of sustainability and strength characteristics, environmental impact as-
sessments (EIA) were carried out for eight selected URHA incorporated
SCC mixes from this study as well as from the literature. The following
conclusions have been drawn from the experimental test results and the
EIA carried out.
M. Sathurshan, I. Yapa, J. Thamboo et al.
The fresh properties of URHA incorporated SCC can be made within
the EFNARC (EFNARC, 2005) specified values with the increase amount
of admixture dosages. Moreover the hardened properties of URHA in-
corporated SCC mixes trialled in this research indicate that the maxi-
mum of 15% of OPC or 10% of FA can be replaced by URHA. The max-
imum of 81.0 MPa and 7.1 MPa compressive and tensile strengths were
achieved, respectively with the 10% replacement of URHA instead of
FA. The environmental impact assessments (EIA) of the selected URHA
incorporated SCC mixes point out that the environmental impacts of the
mixes vary considerably, even if some mixes were considered as opti-
mum in terms of fresh and hardened properties. Further, the strength to
environmental impact ratios calculated mixes considered suggest that
even though the environmental impacts of certain mixes are less, their
corresponding strength ratios also relatively less. Therefore, the opti-
mum URHA replacement level should be considered not only from the
strength properties, however also from the EIA output. Thus, it is recom-
mended to select the optimum mix design of URHA incorporated high
strength SCC in terms of mechanical properties and EIA.
Nevertheless, only the fresh and hardened properties of URHA in-
corporated SCC mixes were evaluated in this study. Conversely, further
systematic investigations are needed in order to understand the long
term strength and durability performance of URHA incorporated SCC,
as the URHA is relatively more porous and coarser than treated (i.e.
ground) RHA.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest in this research.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Sathurshan Mathavanayakam: Investigation, Formal analysis,
Data Curation. Ishanka Yapa: Investigation, Formal analysis, Data Cu-
ration Julian Thamboo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision,
Writing - Original Draft. Thuraisingam Jeyakaran: Methodology, Su-
pervision, Funding acquisition. Satheeskumar Navaratnam: Formal
analysis, Data Curation, Writing - review & editing.Rafat Siddique:
Writing - review & editing. Jingxuan Zhang: Formal analysis, Data Cu-
ration.
Acknowledgements
The Authors thank the South Eastern University of Sri Lanka for
the financial support to this project (under the research grant of
SEU/ASA/RG/2019/02) and provided technical support. The technical
assistance provided by Mr. Mohamed Jiffry, Mr. Mohamed Farhan and
Mr. Mohamed Imthyas are greatly appreciated. Also, technical support
given by RMIT University to simulate EIA is acknowledged.
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