COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FLEXURAL PERFORMANCE OF GEOPOLYMER AND PORTLAND CEMENT CONCRETE BEAM USING FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Geopolymer concrete is an innovative construction material that has been developed to substitute OPC concrete. Compared to OPC concrete, geopolymer concrete has better strength and bond performance. As geopolymer concrete uses waste material such as fly ash, it produces less CO2, and it is more environment-friendly than OPC concrete. In order to ensure the safety of the structure, structural response analysis is needed to be carried out, and flexural performance is one of the important analyses. Previous studies related to geopolymer concrete performance are mainly performed experimentally, which is time-consuming and uneconomical. This research conducted a comparative study of flexural performance and cracked pattern of Geopolymer and OPC concrete using finite element analysis. The OPC and Geopolymer beam was analyzed using ATENA 3D FEA. The finite element simulation using ATENA 3D showed a similar load-displacement pattern to the experimental results. However, the finite element result showed lower ultimate displacement than the experimental results. Based on the finite element modeling result, it was found that the Geopolymer concrete beam has better flexural performance than OPC. It was shown by the post-yield deflection of GPC, which has a 44% higher value of deflection and 12% higher ductility value than OPC with higher compressive strength.