Concrete is however a brittle material that lacks ductility. This means that it fails suddenly without warning. Concrete is a material based which is constantly being improved upon. Several chemical admixtures and additives can be added to concrete to improve its properties. The properties of interest in a structural material are strength, toughness and ductility.
Strength is defined as the maximum load a material can withstand.
Ductility and toughness relate to the deformation at failure and the energy required to break the material respectively. The work was carried out by individual members of the project team. The specific objective of this project was to understand and coordinate the activities in all the four project areas and to design a web page that accurately depicts the conclusions from the research done by the other members of the team. In the first part of the study, the effect of the chemical additive, Metakaolin, on the strength of concrete was studied. The optimum percentage of Metakaolin that produces the maximum increase in strength was also determined.