Fire Resistance of Recycled Aggregate Alkali-Activated Concrete

The use of recycled aggregate (RA) is now encouraged, and various applications are being tested and put forward to help with the issue of sustainability of construction industry. The application of RA with alkali-activated cement (AAC) is an even more attractive step to help with the environment. For this RA-AAC concrete to be widely used in conjunction or supplement to Portland cement (PC) concrete, a number of its characteristics need to be known. One of the important characteristics is the fire resistance which is essential for the design purposes. In this chapter, aspects related to thermal characteristics and response to exposure to high elevated temperatures of AAC concrete with RA are reviewed. Recycled aggregate AAC concrete in general would provide better performance than PC concrete in fire exposure. As there are many types of RAs as well as many types of AAC concretes depending on the source materials and the activators used, the fire resistance behaviors of these RA-AAC concretes can vary widely and should be treated as such. The information and comprehensive list of references are given to lay the basic understanding and to enable further searching and acquiring more knowledge in this field.