Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

Introduction

Concrete is commonly used man-made material on earth.

It is an important construction material used extensively

in buildings, bridges, roads and dams. Concrete, usually

Portland cement concrete is composite material composed of

fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid

cement (cement paste) that harden over time.

The first concrete-like structures were built by the

Nabataea traders or Bedouins who occupied and controlled a

series of oases and developed a small empire in the regions

of southern Syria and northern Jordan in around 6500. (Nick

Gromico and Kenton Shepard)(n,d.).

Rice husk ash (RHA) is abundantly available and

renewable agriculture by product from rice milling in the

rice-producing countries. It has the highest proportion of

silica content among all plant residues. Rice husk ash is

difficult to ignite and does not burn easily with an open

flame.

Cement industry currently faces multiple challenges

both internal and external. On one hand, demand is

moderating especially in the North region and muted to

negative growth in Southern region, industry is also facing

higher input and fuel cost. Some of the most issues of

concrete nowadays are the lack of admixture of concrete

which leads to poor quality of concrete. Concrete is

excellent material, but it is not perfect. Because some of

the builders uses least amount of manpower to get the job

done and uses cheaper, lower quality of concrete.

The need to reduce the high cost of Ordinary Portland

Cement in order to provide accommodation for the populace

has intensified research into the use of some locally

available materials that could be used as partial

replacement for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in Civil

Engineering and Building Works. Supplementary cementite’s

materials have been proven to be effective in meeting most

of the requirements of durable concrete and blended cements

are now used in many parts of the world (Bakar, Putrajaya,

and Abdulaziz, 2010).

Rice husk ash (RHA) has been used as a highly reactive

pozzolanic material to improve the microstructure of the

interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between the cement paste

and the aggregate in high-performance concrete (Biu et al,

2005). Rice husk ash has also been reported to improve the
properties of concrete or cement paste due to the

pozzolanic reaction and its role as a micro-filler. It is

often thought that the first function (pozzolanic reaction)

is most important. The partial replacement of cement by

rice husk ash in cement paste and mortar would provide

micro-structure improvement, pour filling effect and better

packing characteristics of the mixer (Kondraivendhan,

2012).

The need to reduce the high cost of Ordinary Portland

Cement with the desirable characteristics some materials

has to be modified. From the intensified research into

locally available products and reduction in cost partial

replacement of the OPC with rice husk ash is proven to be

effective fulfilling requirement. (Sopan Gochhe et, al,

2017).

However, despite of this solution, there are still problems

and weakness that existing in this solution. There are

still people are still lessen the mixture of concrete.

Thus, this study plays a significant role by providing

concrete industry alternative material which lessens the

use of cement. This project also aim to provide more

durable concrete, high quality that can lessen the heat of

the concrete if use all the rice husk ash as an ingredient

or additive in making cement concrete. And it also aims to

provide concrete without compromising its strength and

durability and at the same time yielding to a beneficial

result for cement concrete.