EFFECT OF LOCALLY SOURCED NIGERIAN GYPSUM ON THE STRENGTH AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF PORTLAND CEMENT MORTAR

Authors

  • AD Muhammad DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
  • YD Amartey DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA 810001, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
  • JM Kaura DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY ZARIA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
  • TS Ijimdiya DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY ZARIA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
  • A Lawan

Keywords:

Gypsum, clinker, mortar, microstructure, compressive strength, flexural strength

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the suitability of Nigerian, sourced Gypsum for the manufacture of Portland cement. Gypsum samples were obtained from eighteen deposits across Nigeria. These were classified into five purity groups based on their calcium sulphate content.  Foreign Gypsum, imported from Morocco, was used as control. Six cement samples where produced for each of the five Gypsum purity groups by grounding and blending cement clinker with 3%, 4%, 5%, 6% and 7% Gypsum content. The group 1 cement mix (having not more than 65% calcium sulphate content) has displayed flash set and could not be moulded and therefore not used for further analysis. Cement mortar prisms were produced for the groups 2, 3, 4 and 5 cement mixes, and subjected to flexural and compressive strength tests at 7, 14, 21 and 28 day curing periods. The cement mortar prisms were also subjected microstructure analysis at 7 and 28 days curing period. The spongy, gel and whitish colouration observed from the microstructure of the specimens indicated silicates enriched regions which have proven the strength increase from 7 to 28 day curing period. The optimum gypsum content of 5.5% was recommended. The results show that all but the class one gypsum with less than 65% purity content are suitable for cement manufacture.

 

http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v39i4.5

Downloads

Published

2020-09-30

Issue

Vol. 39 No. 4 (2020): NIGERIAN JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 39, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2020

Section

Building, Civil & Geotechnical Engineering

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The contents of the articles are the sole opinion of the author(s) and not of NIJOTECH.

NIJOTECH allows open access for distribution of the published articles in any media so long as whole (not part) of articles are distributed.

A copyright and statement of originality documents will need to be filled out clearly and signed prior to publication of an accepted article. The Copyright form can be downloaded from http://nijotech.com/downloads/COPYRIGHT%20FORM.pdf while the Statement of Originality is in http://nijotech.com/downloads/Statement%20of%20Originality.pdf

 

For articles that were developed from funded research, a clear acknowledgement of such support should be mentioned in the article with relevant references. Authors are expected to provide complete information on the sponsorship and intellectual property rights of the article together with all exceptions.

 

It is forbidden to publish the same research report in more than one journal.

How to Cite

EFFECT OF LOCALLY SOURCED NIGERIAN GYPSUM ON THE STRENGTH AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF PORTLAND CEMENT MORTAR. (2020). Nigerian Journal of Technology, 39(4), 1001-1010. https://www.nijotech.com/index.php/nijotech/article/view/2436

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 > >>