Effects of mix design and curing time on compressive and tensile strength of bentonite plastic concrete

Plastic concrete is usually used to build impermeable barriers (cut-off walls), contaminated sites, or leakage control of foundations with high penetration in dams. Effect of clay dosage, aggregate and cement were studied on compressive and tensile strength of bentonite plastic concrete. There was a tendency to reduce the compressive and tensile strength with increasing water to fine fraction and reducing cement and aggregate amounts. In addition, the plastic concrete showed a time-dependent behavior and changes in the mechanical properties of bentonite concrete will be improved by adding silt and clay adsorbents which could be used in water leakage with high contamination. The evaluation of water penetration depth in samples with ages of 28 and 90 days showed a decrease in penetration with increase in clay dosage and curing time. Also, the result of cadmium adsorption by bentonit clay showed that the clay can be effective in terms of water leakage with high pollution conditions.The most appropriate clay amount with respect to the economic issues, compressive and tensile strength would be 20% clay dosage and mix design containing silt and also 200 kg/m-3 cement. Also, in this study some equations have been developed to predicte the 28 and 90 days compressive strength of plastic concrete based on the 7 days compressive strength, and 90 days tensile strength based on the 28 days tensile strength. The R2 more than 0.95 for the developed equations confirms the accuracy of these relations.