In this study, the effect of iron powder (Fe2O3) on Binary Blended Concret the compressive strength, tensile strength, workability, and porosity of the binary blended concrete were experimentally investigated. For Binary Blended Concret this purpose, Portland cement was partially replaced by 1.5%, 2.5%, 3.5%, and 5% by weighing of iron powder. The amount of water-binder-ratio was considered constant. The workability of the fresh composite concrete was determined using cone Abrams method; mechanical properties were determined included compressive and tensile strengths at 7, 14, and 28 days and durability evaluated by water absorption and permeable porosity. It was observed that the compressive and tensile strengths change with the replacement of iron powder by up to 5%. However, the maximum improvement was gained at 2.5 wt% for compressive strength and 1.5 wt% for tensile strength. The workability of the fresh mixtures decreased when iron powder amount increased. It was observed that the porosity decreased respectively by 21.88% and 26.77% at 1.5 wt% and 2.5 wt% replacement. Moreover, this present study shows the importance and benefits to improve concrete properties by using micro-particles materials.

The concrete is a very important building material used in construction. Even though it gives the impression to be well known and its behavior is usually understood, there is still a large amount of research project carrying out in order to investigate it on the microstructural level. Most research has been done by adding nanoparticles to improve the mechanical and physical properties. Apart from the use of OPC in concrete, there are several others cementitious materials such as fly ash, nano-Fe₂O₃, nano-TiO₂, nano-Al₂O₃ used as cement replacement or admixture to improve the properties of cement-based materials for specific applications.

However, there are few reports on the incorporation of nanoparticles in cement-based concrete. Hui et al. (2003) [1] investigated the properties of cement mortars blended with nanoparticles to study their smart mechanical and highest (temperature and strain sensing) potentials. Many researches have been directed toward the utilization of nanoparticles to improve the mechanical properties of mortar and concrete. Recently, Ali Nazeri, et al. (2010) [2] investigated the influence of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles on the compressive strength and workability of blended concrete. It showed that the cement could be advantageously replaced with nano-Al₂O₃ particles up to maximum limit of 2.0% with average particle sizes of 15 nm. Furthermore, until now research has been carried out in order to improve the mechanical performance with cement replacement by materials at the microscale level. Previous research on the effect of nano-TiO₂ particles as an admixture to cement paste has been reviewed by Ali Nazeri, et al. (2010) [3] and has demonstrated that the finer of nano-TiO₂ higher is the mechanical characteristic.

According to the author’s knowledge, there are several studies on incorporating nanoparticles in mortar or concrete. Most of them have been reported on nano-SiO₂ [4] [5] [6] carbon nanotube and nano-Al₂O₃ [6] in cement-based materials. However, the influence of others nanoparticles, such as nano-CuO, nano-ZnO₂, nano-Fe₃O₄, and nano-Fe₂O₃ on the physical and mechanical properties of cement-based materials was also investigated in a few researches [7] [8] [9] .

Previous studies [9] revealed and consistently showed a significant improvement in the mechanical properties and durability performance using the nanoparticles as an admixture. The study showed that 3 wt% of nano-Fe₃O₄ in the cementitious materials was the optimal amount to improve both its mechanical and microstructural properties.

The present study aims to give a contribution to the concrete production area. In this scope, the pozzolanic reaction of iron powder in the concrete mixture with a constant water binder ratio was studied. In this paper as mentioned above, the effect of iron powder (Fe₂O₃) on strength, workability, and porosity of binary blended concrete has been studied by the authors to investigate the mechanical and physical properties (compressive, tensile strengths, workability, water absorption, and porosity). However different studies using nanoparticles in concrete reported the microscopy investigation in recent literature. In the current literature, to the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no experimental work investigated on the microstructures of concrete incorporating iron powder.

This paper reports only the parameters mentioned above of the concrete mixed with iron powder (Fe₂O₃). The result showed that with the increase of iron powder (1.5% and 2.5%), the compressive strength improved. The iron powder has not more impact on tensile splitting strength when the replacement is beyond 1.5% of replacement. The workability decreased with the increasing of the amount of the iron oxide and the porosity decreased up to 2.5% of replacement and start increasing by 5% of iron powder added. Therefore, the admixtures of nanoparticles in concrete can significantly improve the performance of cement-based materials. Thus, utilizing iron powder for concrete production can contribute to engineering characteristic benefit and a good durability performance since it improves the porosity.