EFFECT OF GRAPHENE OXIDE ON THE MECHANICAL STRENGTH AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF CEMENTITIOUS MATERIALS

Abstract

Cement-based concrete is used commonly for numerous constructions. Even though, cement has superior properties and great performance, its inherited brittleness is a major setback that needs more investigation for improvement. To eliminate this problem different types of additives, fibers, supplementary cementitious materials and nanomaterials have been used. One of these promising nanomaterials is graphene. This study is to investigate the feasibility of using graphene as a nano-additive to the cement based materials combined with a common used nano-additive such as silica fume as a dispersant. To conduct the study, eleven different mortar mixes were cast to investigate microstructure and mechanical properties of the cement mortar materials which were compared to benchmark samples. The studied parameters were ratios of both silica and graphene. Based on compressive and tensile strength, the results show that graphene can be thought of having the potential to be used as nano-reinforcement to improve the mechanical properties of cement based materials, provided that a proper amount of the dispersion agent is used.

Keywords

• nanomaterial
• graphene oxide
• silica fume
• additive
• cement