Investigation of the effect of fly ash addition to insulation plasters on physical and mechanical properties

In recent years, it has been seen that environmental pollution, which is caused by waste materials increasing day by day in our world, is posing a significant problem. Therefore, studies have focused on the usability of recyclable wastes instead of raw materials. Especially, utilization of industrial waste materials and by-products prevents the nature from being adversely affected by minimizing resource consumption. Thus, environmental problems, which may arise due to accumulation of those wastes, are reduced. Nearly 90% of all fossil fuel waste released around the world pertains to coal waste. However, only 20% of millions tons of fly ash released by thermal power plants is utilized, which causes a major environmental problem. Fly ash, which is an industrial waste, has been used particularly in the construction sector for concrete manufacturing during the recent years, thus manufacturing costs are reduced and prevention of environmental pollution is facilitated. In this study; changes in thermal insulation and mechanical properties of insulation plaster influenced by substituting insulation plasters with fly ash as an industrial waste, which started to be used frequently in the construction sector in late years, were examined. In this context, changes in thermal conductivity coefficient, bending resistance, pressure resistance, density and water absorption of the samples prepared by substituting off-the-shelf insulation plaster with fly ash at rates of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%, were analyzed. Consequently, it was identified that substituting insulation plaster with fly ash at rate of 30% provides best improvement to thermal conductivity coefficient, at rate of 40% improves the parameters of bending resistance, pressure resistance and density properties better and the lowest water absorption capacity was obtained with substitution at the rate of 40%.