Contribution of siderite fines additions on the Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) strength

Mustapha Zdiri^1,2*, Mongi Ben Ouezdou¹, Nor-Edine Abriak² and Jamel Neji³

¹Civil Engineering Laboratory, National Engineering School of Tunis, BP 37, Tunis-Belvédère 1002, Tunisia.

²Labo de Génie Civil et Environnemental - Ecole des Mines de Douai, rue Charles Boursel, B.P838-59508 France.

³System and Applied Mechanics Laboratory, Tunisia Polytechnic School, BP 743- La Marsa- 2078, Tunisia.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: zdiri_ms@yahoo.fr.Tel: +21698270195.

Fax: +21671442322

Accepted 9 December, 2009

   Abstract

The technology of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) for pavement uses, as additions, various kind of fines such as fly ashes, silica fume and pozzolan. But these products are very expensive and are not yet available in some geographical regions like Tunisia. In the present work, the use of the siderite fines type “Siderite of Jerissa” of Tunisia was introduced, in RCC for pavement. This partial substitution of a cement quantity employed as a binder, was used in order to benefit of their contributions to the mechanical strength improvement and to achieve the economy on cement quantities in the mixtures. Experimental tests, on cylindrical specimens according to the National French Project BaCaRa Method, were achieved with various replacement ratio of cement by the Siderite fines. The influence of different contents of Siderite fines was studied. The results show that some concretes mixtures, with siderite fines, developed mechanical strength higher than those of mixtures containing full cement proportioning.

Key words: Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC), “siderite fine”, replacement ratio, “René LCPC” Software.