Evaluating the influence of silica fume on selected cement mortar properties

Abstract Due to the common and widespread use of cement in different engineering aspects; therefore, improving cement mortar properties from the main targets which were destined by different researchers. These properties include flow test, permeability, compressive strength, modulus of rupture of cement mortar, and ultrasonic pulse velocity tests. Therefore, this study has focused on using silica fume to enhance the aforementioned tests for cement mortar. Five percentages of silica fume have been used from 0.0% to 8%. The results indicate that the reduction in water permeation ratio is about 60 % when 2.5% of silica fume has been used as an admixture to cement mortar. At 2.5% of silica fume as an admixture, the magnitude of strength increase at 7 and 28 days is about 12.2 and 27.6 percent respectively. At 2.5% of silica fume, the increase in the strength is about 30 and 38 percent for 7 and 28 days respectively. The addition of silica fume to the cement mortar results in increasing the pulse velocity.