Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Influence of rice husk ash on strength and permeability of ultra-high

performance concrete
Huanghuang Huang a, Xiaojian Gao a,b,c,⇑, Hui Wang a, Huan Ye a
a
School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China
b
Key Lab of Structures Dynamic Behavior and Control of the Ministry of Education, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China
c
Key Lab of Smart Prevention and Mitigation of Civil Engineering Disasters of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin
150090, China

h i g h l i g h t s

Rice husk ash (RHA) enhances compressive strength and refines pore structure of UHPC.

Permeability of UHPC cylinder increases with the higher vertical load.

RHA decreases permeability of UHPC upon the load of 0–70% ultimate strength.

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

Article history: This paper aims to investigate the effects of rice husk ash (RHA) on strength and permeability of ultra-
Received 10 April 2017 high performance concrete (UHPC). RHA was manufactured by calcining rice husk at temperature of
Received in revised form 17 May 2017 500 °C and incorporated in UHPC mixture to replace different ratio of silica fume (SF) by weight.
Accepted 20 May 2017
Flowability and air content of fresh mixture and the compressive and flexural strength at different curing
Available online 29 May 2017
ages were measured. Permeability before and after loading were assessed by water absorption and chlo-
ride ion penetration. The pore structure was also evaluated for selected samples by using mercury intru-
Keywords:
sion measurement. The results show that the addition of RHA to replace SF decreases the fluidity of fresh
Ultra-high performance concrete
Rice husk ash
UHPC mixture and entraps more air bubbles. The addition of RHA enhances the compressive strength and
Strength impermeability of UHPC due to the refined pore structure. The permeability of cylindrical specimen
Permeability after loading increases notably with the increasing vertical loading and the lateral loading has an insignificant influ-
ence on the water absorption. When the loading level is lower than 70% of ultimate strength, the RHA
added sample presents a lower water absorption and chloride ion penetration than the control one.
Therefore, RHA is a promising substitute for SF in UHPC production.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction superplasticizer dosage [5–7]. Depending on ingredient composi-

Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is regarded as one of
the latest advances in concrete technology due to its high compres-
sive strength and durability [1], which has been developed into
many attractive applications in construction industry in Europe,
Asia and North America [2–4]. UHPC is commonly characterized
by large quantities of Portland cement, silica fume (SF) and fine
aggregates with steel fibers for reinforcement, presenting out-
standing flowability and a close-packed state in spite of a very
low water to binder ratio (w/b), with the addition of a high
⇑ Corresponding author at: School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin 150090, China.
E-mail address: gaoxj@hit.edu.cn (X. Gao).
tion and manufacture procedure, compressive strength of UHPC
typically ranges from 150 MPa to 800 MPa [8,9], and in China,
UHPC is defined as a concrete with 28-day compressive strength
over 100 MPa [10].
Rice husk ash (RHA) is the solid residue after burning rice husks
(RHs), an agricultural waste widely produced all over the world
[11]. Mehta [12] and Nair [13] studied that RHA prepared in appro-
priate procedures has high pozzolanic reactivity and proves com-
petent to be a promising supplementary cementitious material.
Xu [14] reported that RHA possesses porous microstructure, high
specific surface area and very high content of amorphous nano-
silica, using modern testing and analyzing techniques such as
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Transmission Electron Micro-
scope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD). SF plays a crucial role in

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.05.155
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
622 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628

UHPC, being attributed to its excellent physically filling and chem-

ically pozzolanic effects [15]. However, high cost and limited avail-
ability also give rise to some disadvantages especially in some
regions which lack resources. RHA is economical, widely available
and highly pozzolanic as a supplementary cementing material,
which is a promising substitute replacing SF in UHPC production.
The principal objective of this work is to investigate the effects
of RHA on the strength and permeability of UHPC. Amounts of
experimental research on the strength and permeability of mortar
or ordinary concrete incorporating RHA have been reported
[16–18]. With regard to UHPC with RHA, the strength was studied
for many years and relevant literature was easily available on the
Internet. Van found that UHPC containing RHA possesses compara-
ble compressive strength compared with that of UHPC containing
SF [19]. Nguyen studied the compressive strength development
of UHPC versus time and concluded that the compressive strength
of the RHA modified sample is higher than that of the control sam- Fig. 2. XRD patterns of RHA and SF.
ple at later ages (i.e. beyond 7 days) or even after 3 days [20]. How-
ever, limited research on permeability is available arising from
high density and refined porosity of UHPC. Moreover, most struc- Table 1
Chemical and physical properties of cementing materials.
tures are exposed to different loading in service such as bridge
piers, wharfs and dams and the permeability will have an out- Cement SF RHA
standing influence on the durability of these structures. The per- Chemical analysis (wt%)
meability of UHPC in real structures will vary with loading level CaO 66.45 0.63 1.07
and little research in this field can be found in literatures. There- SiO2 17.84 87.67 91.56
Al2O3 4.26 0.28 0.19
fore, it brings us the ideas to study the strength and permeability Fe2O3 3.58 0.60 0.17
of UHPC while replacing SF with RHA by different ratio, and fur- MgO 2.14 3.41 0.65
thermore, to study the permeability of UHPC after being loaded Na2O 0.16 1.30 0.16
in two directions, vertical and lateral respectively. K2O 0.96 4.12 3.76
SO3 4.10 0.84 0.47
Physical properties
2. Materials and methods Apparent density (g/m3) 3.10 2.25 2.19
Blaine (BET) SSA (m2/g) 0.36 17.30 64.70
2.1. Materials Pozzolanic activity index – 108.6 123.7

The cement used in this study is ordinary Portland cement with

strength grade of 52.5 in accordance with Chinese standard GB
175-2007 [21]. As a fine mineral admixture in UHPC, the SF powder
consists of spherical particles with theoretical size from 0.1 lm to
1 lm and BET specific surface area (SSA) of 17.3 m2/g. The RHA is
produced by burning rice husk in a programmable temperature
at a rate of 10 °C/min to 500 °C for 2 h and then grinding the cal-
cined residue in a vibrating mill for 15 min. The appearance and
the particle size distribution of ground RHA are shown in Fig. 1,
it can be found that the mean particle size of ground RHA is about
11 lm. The XRD analysis shown in Fig. 2 indicates that both SF and
RHA contain mainly amorphous silicon dioxide. The chemical and
physical properties of cement, SF and RHA are given in Table.1.
The chemical components of three cementing materials were mea-
sured by X-ray Fluorescence, and the pozzolanic reactivity index
were measured in accordance with Chinese standard GB/T
12957-2005 [22]. As shown in Table 1, RHA possesses a larger
value of BET SSA, higher content of amorphous silicon dioxide
and pozzolanic reactivity index compared to SF. The SEM images
shown at two different magnifications (500 and 10,000) in
Fig. 3 reveal the layered and porous microstructure of RHA, as
described in earlier research [14]. The Barrett-Joyner-Halenda
(BJH) testing shown in Fig. 4 verifies the existence of nano-pores

Fig. 1. Appearance and particle size distribution of ground RHA.

 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628 623

Fig. 3. SEM images of RHA at magnifications of (a) 500 and (b) 10000.

Two kinds of quartz sand (i.e. fine sand and coarse sand) are uti-
lized as aggregates and fillers. Fine sand has particles with size
between 0.109 mm and 0.212 mm and coarse sand has particles
between 0.212 mm and 0.380 mm. The grading and physical prop-
erties of fine and coarse sand are shown in Table 2. A
polycarboxylate-based superplasticizer (SP) with water-reducing
range of more than 30% and solid content of about 40% by weight
is applied to improve the flowability of fresh mixture.

2.2. UHPC preparation

The control mixture (Sample O) of UHPC was selected from a

previous study [24] and RHA was added to replace different ratio
of SF by weight as shown in Table 3. For all the mixtures, the water
to binder ratio was kept 0.2 and the total binder was kept the same.
Fig. 4. BJH analysis of RHA. The SP was added by 1.6% of binder weight to maintain the fluidity
of UHPC mixture from 200 mm and 220 mm. All mixtures were
blended in a mixer according to the mixing procedure given in
Table 2
Grading and physical properties of aggregates.
Fig. 5 in order to improve the effect of SP and achieve a better
uniformity.
Sieve size (mm) Cumulative percentage retained (%)
Fine sand Coarse sand
2.3. Experimental methods
2.5 0 0
1.25 0.16 0.10
For testing fluidity of fresh UHPC, the mixture was cast into a
0.63 0.36 12.14
0.315 28.30 87.26
mini-cone mold uniformly. Then the mold was lifted vertically
0.16 81.16 97.74 and two diameters perpendicular to each other were measured.
<0.16 100 100 The mean value was recorded as slump flow to evaluate the
Apparent density (kg/m3) 3.00 2.86 fluidity.
For testing entrapped air content of fresh UHPC, the mixture
was cast into a cylinder container uniformly and the entrapped
with diameter from 3 nm to 10 nm in RHA, explaining the high SSA air content was recorded through a pressure gauge. For every mix-
and water absorption capability of RHA, which can release ture, the entrapped air content was tested twice, if the difference
absorbed water in the porous structure to improve the compres- between the two measured values was less than 0.2%, the average
sive strength in terms of studies by Van et al. [19,23]. value was determined as the test result.

Table 3
Mix proportions of UHPC.

No. Replacement Water to binder Cement (kg/m3) SF (kg/m3) RHA (kg/m3) Fine sand (kg/m3) Coarse SP (% by weight
ratio ratio (by weight) sand (kg/m3) of binder)
(by weight)
O 0 0.2 920 276 0 202 810 1.6
R-1 1/6 0.2 920 230 46 202 810 1.6
R-2 1/3 0.2 920 184 92 202 810 1.6
R-3 1/2 0.2 920 138 138 202 810 1.6
R-4 2/3 0.2 920 92 184 202 810 1.6
R-5 5/6 0.2 920 46 230 202 810 1.6
R-6 1 0.2 920 0 276 202 810 1.6
624 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628

Fig. 5. Mixing procedure of UHPC.

Fig. 6. (a) Loading directions and (b) photo for lateral loading.

For testing strength of UHPC, a set of mixtures were cast into tive passed charge in 6 h, indicated by Coulombs, is an indicator of
40 mm  40 mm  160 mm plastic moulds and all mixtures were the chloride ion penetration conforming to Chinese standard GB/T
vibrated for 1 min. After vibrating, the samples with moulds were 50082-2009 [28].
cured in a fog room (20 ± 2 °C, RH >95%) for one day. After For testing the total porosity and pore size distribution of typi-
demoulding, the samples were kept in the fog room until the day cal UHPC samples at ages of 3 and 28 days, the mercury intrusion
of testing (i.e. 3, 28 and 120 days). measurement (MIP) was performed with AutoPore IV 9500. The
Considering the effects on transport properties caused by load- samples were selected from typical specimens after strength mea-
ing direction, samples were subjected to a series of loads which surement and then placed in a drying oven for 7 days at 60 °C to
equal to 30%, 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% of the ultimate compressive reach dry state. The MIP measurement is automatically imple-
strength respectively. Then, the permeability of UHPC after vertical mented in two stages: a low pressure runs from 0 to 0.21 MPa
or lateral loading was tested. Two loading directions and photo of and a high pressure runs from 0.21 to 227.53 MPa.
lateral loading were shown in Fig. 6, two annular fixtures made of
steel were designed in order to apply lateral loads. Water absorp-
3. Results and discussion
tion and chloride ion penetration were chosen to assess the perme-
ability of UHPC samples before and after loading [25,26].
3.1. Fluidity and entrapped air content
For testing permeability of UHPC, U100 mm  50 mm cylinder
specimens were prepared to measure the water absorption and
Fluidity and entrapped air content of UHPC mixture incorporat-
chloride ion penetration. For testing water absorption, every sam-
ing RHA are given in Fig. 7. As shown, fluidity decreases slowly and
ple was first desiccated at 60 °C in a drying oven until the relative
rate of mass change was less than 0.1% for two days, then, the sides
of samples were coated with 1 cm long epoxy resin closed to the
bottom surfaces in order to allow the absorption in one direction.
The initial mass of every sample was recorded when epoxy resin
solidifies, The bottom surfaces were partially immersed by 3 mm,
and the mass of samples at 1 min, 4 min, 9 min, 16 min, 25 min,
36 min, 49 min, 64 min, 81 min, 100 min, 121 min were recorded
respectively. The absorption of water into every sample driven
by capillary forces was dependent on the square root of time
[27] and measured results were fitted to the following equation:

V w ¼ St0:5 þ b ð1Þ
2 2
where Vw (g/m ) is the water absorption by unit area, S (g/(m 
min0.5)) is the sorptivity of the material, t (min) is the elapsed time
and b (g/m2) is the initial water absorption. With regard to testing
chloride ion penetration, a rapid method consisting of monitoring
the total electrical current which passed through the specimen
under a potential difference of 60 V was implemented. The cumula- Fig. 7. Fluidity and entrapped air content of UHPC mixture.
 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628
Fig. 8. Compressive and flexural strength of UHPC.
entrapped air content increases steadily when the replacement
ratio is less than 1/2. After that, fluidity declines rapidly from
192 mm to 165 mm while entrapped air content goes up signifi-
cantly from 3.6% to 4.5% with the replacement ratio increasing to
5/6. The mixture loses fluidity with the replacement ratio reaching
1 where the air content is failed to be tested. The measured results
of fluidity are consistent with Le’s research [29]. It can be con-
cluded that water demand increases with the addition of RHA to
maintain a good flowability. Large consumption of blending water
results in the decrease of fluidity, which leads to the increase of
entrapped air content.
3.2. Compressive and flexural strength
Compressive and flexural strength of UHPC with different
replacement ratios of RHA at 3, 28, and 120 days are presented in
Fig. 8. It can be found that RHA improves the compressive strength
of UHPC compared to SF. The compressive strength of R-4 with
replacement ratio of 2/3 at 3, 28, and 120 days are 95.6 MPa,
136.6 MPa, and 137.2 MPa, surpassing those of control group by
9.76%, 14.50% and 10.02% respectively. The fineness of RHA falls
between that of SF and that of cement, it is likely that SF, RHA,
Fig. 9. (a) Water absorption by unit area, (b) sorptivity and chloride ion penetration of UHPC before loading.
625
cement and quartz sand in the mixture with replacement ratio of
2/3 consistently form the densest packing state. Apart from filling
effect, both pozzolanic reactivity and internal curing effect of RHA
make outstanding contribution to the development of compressive
strength, which has been reported elsewhere [19]. As shown in
Figs. 7 and 8, the fluidity and air content change from 210 mm,
3.10% to 180 mm, 4.10% respectively, while the compressive
strength at 28 days rises from 119.3 MPa to 136.6 MPa with the
replacement ratio of RHA increasing to 2/3. It is speculated that
the increase of entrapped air content may have a negative effect
on the compressive strength improvement. Therefore, UHPC may
gain an extended growth in compressive strength by adjusting
the entrapped air content. With the addition of RHA, the flexural
strength at 3 days is improved, while those at 28 and 120 days
show little significant change.
3.3. Permeability before loading
Scatter plot given in Fig. 9a shows a highly linear relation
between water absorption by unit area and the square root of time
in first two hours, with the correlation coefficient above 0.99. The
sorptivity based on Eq. (1) and the total charge which passed
through UHPC samples in 6 h are plotted in Fig. 9b. As can be seen,
sorptivity and chloride ion penetration are all very small, which are
below the previous studies conducted by Tafraoui et al. [30,31].
This may be attributed to the higher degree of density in UHPC,
and external media, for example, water and ions are resisted to
enter the samples. The addition of RHA reduces sorptivity and
chloride ion penetration, which proves that RHA particles can
improve permeability of samples. The lowest permeability is
achieved with the replacement ratio of 1/3, differing from that
for compressive strength (2/3), which is due to the coupled effect
of packing density and entrapped air content. The hydration prod-
ucts and microstructures may contribute to this tendency and fur-
ther studies will be carried out in future plan.
3.4. Permeability after vertical loading
In this part, sample O and R-4 was selected for water absorption
and chloride ion penetration testing after loading, and the results
after vertical loading are shown in Figs. 10 and 11. The water
absorption and chloride ion penetration of both samples rise
626 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628

Fig. 10. Water absorption by unit area of (a) O and (b) R-4 after vertical loading.

significantly with the increasing load from 30% to 80%, and the
water absorption and chloride ion penetration R-4 increase slower
than those of O due to the higher compressive strength with the
load not exceeding 70%. As the load reaches 80%, water absorption
by unit area, sorptivity and chloride ion penetration of R-4 rise to
5747.8 g/m2, 195.9 g/(m2  min0.5) and 7242.4 C, while those of
O are 5081.5 g/m2, 166.5 g/(m2  min0.5) and 5827.9 C, surpassing
by 13.11%, 17.66% and 24.27% respectively. Based on the appear-
ance observation of specimens after exposure to different levels
of load, R-4 has fewer desquamations and visible cracks than O if
the load does not exceed 70%. As the load reaches 80%, R-4 under-
goes a bigger damage with more desquamations and visible cracks
than O. The brittleness of high-strength concrete increases with
the enhancement of strength in terms of studies by Gettu
[32,33], which is likely to lead to a decrease in anti-permeability
when subjected to high levels of loading (above 70%).

3.5. Permeability after lateral loading

Water absorption by unit area, sorptivity and chloride ion pen-

etration of O and R-4 after lateral loading are given in Figs. 12 and
13. As presented, both water absorption by unit area and sorptivity
of two groups rise slightly with the load increasing to 80%, reaching
only 189.8 g/m2 and 14.84 g/(m2  min0.5) for O, 201.3 g/m2 and
13.38 g/(m2  min0.5) for R-4 respectively, which are also very
close to those of samples before loading. The possible reason is that
most cracks generated are distributed around the sides instead of
the bottom surfaces, having few effects on water absorption. On
Fig. 11. Sorptivity and chloride ion penetration of O and R-4 after vertical loading.
the other hand, these side cracks make a negative contribution to

Fig. 12. Water absorption by unit area of (a) O and (b) R-4 after lateral loading.
 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628 627

28 days is much lower than that at 3 days for all samples with
the development of hydration. Samples incorporating RHA present
a lower total porosity. The total porosity of R-4 at 3 and 28 days are
5.10% and 3.41%, reduced by 5.38% and 9.06% compared to O whose
total porosity are 5.39% and 3.75% respectively. The most probable
diameters as indicated by the highest peak in the differential curve
is more than 20 nm at 3 days and less than 10 nm at 28 days. With
the addition of RHA, the pore diameter moves to right in the MIP
differential curve which means the pore structure of UHPC is
refined due to the internal curing and pozzolanic reaction with
Ca(OH)2 [34]. Samples with the RHA replacement ratio of 2/3 pre-
sent the lowest total porosity and the finest pore structure, and the
results are in accordance with the 28-day compressive strength.
Apparently, RHA generates a better microstructure of UHPC with
larger particle size and economic advantage compared to SF.

Fig. 13. Sorptivity and chloride ion penetration of O and R-4 after lateral loading.
4. Conclusions

Based on the above experimental results, the following conclu-

Table 4 sions can be drawn:
Total porosity of UHPC samples at ages of 3 and 28 days.

No. Total porosity of UHPC samples at ages of 3
With the increasing addition of RHA to replace SF, the fluidity of
and 28 days,% fresh UHPC mixture decreases while the entrapped air content
3 days 28 days rises conversely.

The addition of RHA enhances the compressive strength and
O 5.39 3.75
R-2 5.07 3.55
impermeability of UHPC more or less, and the pore structure
R-4 5.10 3.41 is also refined. The replacement ratio of 2/3 shows the best
R-5 5.29 3.61 improving effect, increasing the compressive strength at 3, 28
and 120 days by 9.76%, 14.50%, 10.02% respectively.

The permeability of cylindrical UHPC specimens increases nota-
bly with the increasing vertical loading. The lateral loading has
inducing a relatively higher chloride ion penetration. The chloride
an insignificant influence on the water absorption of cylindrical
ion penetration of R-4 rises a little slower than that of O with the
UHPC specimens and leads to a remarkable increase in chloride
load not exceeding 70%, analogously, surpassing that of O by
ion penetration.
6.90% at 80%, reaching 1662.01 C and 1554.76 C respectively.

When the loading level is lower than 70% of ultimate strength,
the RHA added sample presents a lower water absorption and
3.6. Pore structure chloride ion penetration than the control one.

The calcined RHA at 500 °C in this study improves both strength
The total porosity and pore size distribution of UHPC samples and permeability of UHPC, being a promising substitute for SF in
measured by mercury intrusion measurement (MIP) at 3 and UHPC production.
28 days are provided in Table 4 and Fig. 14. The total porosity at

Fig. 14. Pore size distribution of UHPC samples at (a) 3 days and (b) 28 days.
628 H. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 149 (2017) 621–628
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China [No. 51578192] and Practical Technology Research
and Development Program of Heilongjiang Province-China
[GA16C103].
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