The influence of microwave incinerated rice husk ash on foamed concrete workability and compressive strength using Taguchi method

Foamed concrete is lightweight concrete with a green material concept. One of cement-based materials is Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA) foamed concrete (FC) as a pozzolanic material, that is interesting to be studies since the information about the ingredient can be used to understand the product behaviors. This study is more focused on the investigation towards the effect of composer of MIRHA FC on the workability and compressive strength. The mix proportion of the MIRHA FC here was designed by means of Taguchi method with L₁₆ orthogonal array through five parameters (MIRHA contents, water cementitious ratio (w/c), sand cement ratio (s/c), superplasticizer (SP) content, and foam content). The mixtures were tested both in fresh and hardened states to fulfill the technical requirement of FC. It was also supported by the analysis on the characteristics of concretes including its workability and compressive strength. Based on the analysis, it is shown MIRHA is capable of enhancing FC workability and strength.