Experimental Investigation on Cement Mortar Blended with HNC and CNTs’ [Hallyosite nanoclay and Carbon Nanotubes]-Taguchi’s Approach

This research focuses on the results of experimental investigation of the compressive strength of Cement
Mortar cubes blended with Multi walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) and Hallyosite Nanoclay (HNC’s).
The percentage of MWCNTs and HNC’s was fixed to 0.5%, 0.75% and 1% by weight of cement. In this
research, experiments were conducted on the 3 different grades of mortar( MM-3,MM-5,MM-7.5 ) and 3
different size of cube specimens (25x25x25, 50x50x50 and 75x75x75), out of which 50mm cube is the size
as per IS 2250-1981 and remaining two (25 mm and 75mm) are trial mixes. Casted specimens were tested
on 7th, 14th and 28th day of curing. Compressive strengths obtained from these experiments are analyzed
through Taguchi’s method of Optimization and ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) with the help of Commercial
software MINITAB-16. Statistical Analysis is conducted to find the interaction of the factors and their effect
on strength of mortar. Regression analyses are employed to obtain the optimal process parameters. Out of
0.5%, 0.75%and 1% of HNC added to the conventional cement mortar 0.75% resulted in Optimum
Compressive Strength for 50mm size of cube specimen as per experiments and Regression Analysis. Also, it
is observed that when MWCNTs are mixed, compressive strength increases as percentage increases