LAUSR

Abstract This study aims to investigate the effect of cement replacement with high volume fraction of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and cement kiln dust (CKD) on mechanical, durability and microstructural properties of cement mortar from 1day to 550 days. Compressive strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) were used to evaluate the mortars' performance. Besides, statistical analyses were conducted to predict mortars' mechanical and durability performance as well as investigate the influence of mortars’ properties (mixture and curing time) on their performance. The results indicated that replacing the cement with up to 60% GGBFS and CKD showed a comparable behavior to the cement after 28 days of curing onward. The statistical analysis revealed that the developed models achieved high level of agreement between the predicted and observed results with a coefficient of determination (R2) of more than 0.97. The findings in this study announced on the development of promising binder that can be used in different construction sectors with the benefits of reducing the CO2 emissions.