THE INCORPORATIONS OF WOOD ASH AND PALM FIBERS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF HIGH PERFORMANCE MORTAR

Abstract

This paper presents two stages: The first stage discusses the use of wood ash for the production of High Performance Mortar(HPM). The different weight percentages used for wood ash are:6,8,10,12, 14 and 16% as partial replacement of cement. Thus, the experimental tests includeddensity, compressive strength and flexuralstrength. The results illustratethat the wood ash decreases the density of HPM. Besides, the inclusion of10% ofwood ash as a partial replacement of cementgives the best compressive and flexural strengths of the HPM. Whereas, the second stage shows the use of optimum percentage of wood ash (10%) with different volumetric percentages of palm fibers (0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2%) which are incorporated in HPM. The experimental tests included density, compressive strength , flexural strength and toughness performance according to ASTM C1018 and ASTM C1609. The results indicated that the use of palm fibers would reduce the density of HPM. The use of 0.6% of palm fibers with 10% of wood ash increase the compressive and flexural strengths by about 15 and 30%, respectively. Besides, the use of 0.9% of palm fibers enhances significantly the flexural toughness of HPM