Orthogonal experiment on performance of mortar made with dune sand: Fid-Bau Portal

Orthogonal experiment on performance of mortar made with dune sand

Liu, Yanhua / Li, Yuqing / Jiang, Guohui

Highlights • Alternative dune sand is sustainable solution for making mortar. • Dune sand replacing ratio and clay replacing ratio can affect properties of mortar. • Analytic hierarchy process is an effective method for optimal assessment of mortar.

Abstract An orthogonal experimental investigation on the behavior of mortar made with dune sand from JinShatan desert of North China is presented in this paper. Two groups of experiments with dune sand replacing ratio (0, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%), water-cement ratio (1.19, 1.53 and 2.14) and clay replacing ratio (0, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%) are carried out for studying the effects on compressive strength and consistency of mortar. The weight and mix ratio of all factors at each level are obtained through analytic hierarchy process and synthetic evaluation. The results indicate that the compressive strength of mortar reaches its peak value when the dune sand replacing ratio is 20%, while the sinking degree of mortar decreases with the increasing of dune sand replacing ratio. With clay replacing ratio rises, the compressive strength is decreasing, but the sinking degree is increased by comparison with reference mortar. Based on the results obtained from the experiments and evaluation, mortar mixed with dune sand can be utilized in engineering constructions and fulfil requirements of mortar strength and consistency as well as economic feasibility.