PSI - Issue 70

Nithin A V et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 70 (2025) 215–222

216

Nomenclature f y

Yield Strength Ultimate Strength

f u

Mega Pascal

MPa

1. Introduction Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) is the major component of various building structures due to its economic feasibility. The substantial intrinsic energy consumption during the production and usage stages of RCC makes its unsustainable. It also results in d irect CO₂ emissions from the use of cement as a binder material. There have been many studies to reduce the total intrinsic energy demand of the production of concrete. Adopting geopolymer technology in concrete production will eliminate the need for clinker production, significantly reducing carbon emissions associated with cement manufacture. The clinker production has the most adverse impact of the environment and the usage of cement in India is expected to rise above 600 million metric tons in this year(Ghosh & Hasan, 2020). Most research in the field of geopolymers has predominantly centered around heat-cured fly ash-based systems, largely due to their wide availability. Due to dependence on energy-intensive curing, these geopolymers had practical limitations. With the ongoing decrease of coal-fired power generation, the availability of fly ash in the future will become uncertain. The researchers have increasingly focused on the development of ambient-cured blended geopolymers that make use of varied industrial by-products. When compared to mono- and binary systems, ternary blended geopolymers had enhanced performance under ambient circumstances. These concretes formed using an inorganic cement-like material formed by the alkaline activation of reactive aluminosilicate precursors under heat or ambient curing conditions. Previous studies have shown that GPCs exhibit mechanical and durability properties comparable to conventional concrete, along with improved abrasion resistance, acid attack resistance, and potential as sustainable low-density lightweight concrete(Gharieb & Khater, 2025; Sona & Sangeetha, 2025; Yang et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2025; Zheng et al., 2024). Two-way slabs are the major load-bearing structure, having a load distribution behaviour in all the directions. Investigating its flexural performance using ambient-cured GPC will aid in optimizing the percentage of reinforcement, cover thickness, and deflection. The geopolymer concrete of M60 grade using GGBS and FA demonstrated superior blast energy distribution and reduced localized damage compared to slabs reinforced with traditional steel reinforcement(Meng et al., 2019). Additionally, the GPC slabs showed enhanced material strength and greater structural stiffness, resulting in lower deformation and more controlled cracking patterns under identical blast loading conditions(Meng et al., 2019, 2020). The flexural behavior of steel-reinforced one-way slabs made from ambient-cured geopolymer concrete (GPC) was better than traditional OPC concrete. The parameters, such as cracking patterns, failure modes, load-deflection characteristics, and strain behavior, were improved. The GPC slabs of M50 grade using GGBS and FA developed finer and more closely spaced cracks due to enhanced bonding between the steel and geopolymer matrix, although they exhibited slightly lower initial stiffness and cracking loads compared to their OPC counterparts(Huang et al., 2023). Incorporating 0.5% by volume of hooked-end steel fibres enhanced the structural performance of geopolymer concrete slabs reinforced with fibres when subjected to both quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions. The experimental tests demonstrated that FR-GPC slabs of M50 grade using GGBS and FA exhibited superior punching shear resistance, energy absorption, and crack control compared to plain GPC slabs(Chen et al., 2025). Geopolymer concrete slabs have demonstrated better performance in terms of punching shear resistance, flexural-shear behavior, thermal stability, and blast resistance compared to conventional slabs(Altay Eren, 2022; Bhuvaneshwari et al., 2024; Heweidak et al., 2022; Huang et al., 2023; Huang & Dai, 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Meng et al., 2019; Mohmmad et al., 2022). The available literature is largely focused on the structural studies of geopolymer slabs with monolithic loading, with a noticeable gap in the behavior of two-way geopolymer concrete slabs, particularly under 16-point loading conditions. No studies were reported on geopolymer concrete with low-reactive hydrous clay and copper slag. Hence, flexural studies of ternary blended geopolymer concrete (TBGC)-based slabs were carried out. A preliminary investigation was conducted to develop a sustainable M40-grade TBGC. The use of copper slag (CS) as a partial