Tools for designing the early-age properties of fly ash and limestone filler ternary systems

Abstract

The design of ternary systems with ordinary portland cement (OPC) and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) in terms of clinker factor is interesting to obtain a compressive strength improvement with lower CO2 emissions; however, until now, a methodology has not been developed to establish the optimal design. In this sense, the early-age properties of binary and ternary pastes and mortars with different proportions of limestone filler (LF) and fly ash (FA) were analyzed to evaluate which parameters have greater relevance in optimizing these systems. The results show that predicting the flowability and the 2-days compressive strength in mortars is possible using the paste film thickness (PFT) and cumulative heat at 48 h, respectively. This approach makes it possible to design systems with LF and FA based on the desired performance.