ABSTRACT
Table 4.1 presents the results of a water absorption test on self-compacting geopolymer concrete (SCGPC) conducted with a liquid-to-binder ratio of 0.4 at the curing ages of 7, 28, and 90 days. The permeability of the prepared SCGPC was decreased slightly with increasing age. Furthermore, the control specimen (M1) absorbed less water throughout the curing period compared with all other SCGPC specimens. This could be attributed to the high-water absorbability of the garnet particles (6%) compared with that of the sand particles (3%). Meanwhile, with decreasing curing duration, the water absorption of the concrete specimens decreased. At 7 days, the water absorbed by the M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5 specimens was 3.86%, 4.05% 4.67%, 5.16%, and 5.47%, respectively. Compared with 7 days curing, the water absorption values at 90 days for M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5 were 3.34%, 3.42%, 4.10%, 4.72, and 5.01%, respectively. In fact, there was a reduction by 13%, 15%, 12%, 8.6%, and 8% at 90 days for M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5, respectively, as shown in Figure 4.1. Generally, for all the samples, the water absorption was lower than the limit of 10% recommended by Neville (2011). Chan and Sun (2013) acknowledged that higher water absorption could increase the concrete’s permeability.
