Abstract—Blast furnace slag is a nonmetallic material produced from a molten state together with pig iron in a blast furnace. Air-cooled blast furnace slag is produced through a relatively slow solidification of molten slag under ambient conditions, resulting in a porous crystalline material that absorbs a great amount of water. As per the records of 2014 in Japan, around 3,572 kilotons of air-cooled slag was mainly used as a roadbed material whereas only 329 kilotons of it was utilized as a coarse aggregate for concrete. However, a reduced porosity air-cooled slag aggregate (PACSS’s aggregate) has been recently developed through a process of plate-shaped slag solidification that results a decrease in porosity and a considerably lower rate of water absorption, which is almost comparable to that of natural aggregate. This paper evaluates PACSS’s aggregate’s suitability as a coarse aggregate for use in precast concrete. The obtained results demonstrate that, a couple of physical properties of PACSS’s aggregate are almost comparable to those of limestone aggregate. The results also indicate that, concrete produced with PACSS’s aggregate carries greater mechanical properties and almost identical fresh properties as compared to those created with limestone aggregate and sandstone aggregate. Similarly, the freeze-thaw durability of concrete made with PACSS’s aggregate was observed to be slightly larger than those produced with conventional aggregates.
 

Index Terms— Air-cooled slag aggregate, fresh properties, freeze-thaw resistance, mechanical properties, physical properties.

Cite: Irfanullah Irfan, Hiroyuki Tobo, Yasutaka Ta, and Shigeyuki Date, "Study on the Utilization of Innovative Air-cooled Slag Aggregates in Precast Concrete," International Journal of Structural and Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 252-257, November 2017. doi: 10.18178/ijscer.6.4.252-257