ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Construction Materials
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1686072
This article is part of the Research TopicSynergistic Innovation of Sustainable and High-Performance Materials: Performance Optimization and Engineering Applications of Environmentally Friendly Construction MaterialsView all articles
Steel slag powder as supplementary cementitious material in UHPC: influence on key properties and microstructure
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guizhou Provincial Mountainous Expressway Intelligent Operation and Maintenance Engineering Research Center, Guizhou Expressway Group, Guiyang, China
- 2Guizhou University, Guiyang, China
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The large quantity of steel slag deposit has caused great environmental pressure. This study aims to recycle steel slag powder (SSP) as a supplementary cementitious material in the production of eco-friendly ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) with varying SSP fineness (200-600 m²/kg) and dosage (20-40%). The rheological properties, mechanical strength, autogenous/drying shrinkage, and microstructure of UHPC were systematically investigated using the Modified Andreasen & Andersen particle packing model. The results show that 20% SSP-400 optimally enhances compressive strength (133.5 MPa) by refining pore structure. SSP significantly mitigates autogenous shrinkage due to reduced self-desiccation, but increases drying shrinkage at high dosages/fineness (up to 21.5% at 40% SSP-600). Microstructural analysis confirms SSP-400 promotes complete hydration at 20-30% dosage, while higher fineness accelerates early reactions but hinders later hydration. Ecological assessment validates SSP utilization reduces cement consumption and carbon footprint. Therefore, SSP-400 at 20% dosage enables sustainable UHPC with balanced performance.
Keywords: steel slag powder, Ultra-high performance concrete, Autogenousshrinkage, Mechanical Properties, microstructure
Received: 14 Aug 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qiao, Zhou, Deng and Du. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bin Du, Guizhou University, Guiyang, China
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