The civil construction and infrastructure sectors are known for their high environmental impact. Most of this impact is related to the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from Portland cement. As a sustainable alternative, alkali-activated binders (AABs) are explored for their potential to replace traditional binders. This research focused on AAB formulations using steel industry byproducts, such as Baosteel’s slag short flow (BSSF), coke oven ash (CA), blast furnace sludge (BFS), and centrifuge sludge (CS), as well as fly ash (FA) from a thermoelectric plant. Byproducts were characterized through laser granulometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), followed by the formulation of AABs with different precursor ratios. After 28 days, the compressive strength was obtained for each formulation. Based on the compressive strength tests, two binary mixtures were selected for microstructural and chemical analyses through XRF, FTIR, and SEM. CA demonstrated the greatest potential for use in binary AABs based on BSSF, as it presented a higher source of aluminosilicates and smaller particle sizes. The formulations containing BSSF and CA achieved compressive strengths of up to 9.8 MPa, while the formulations with BSSF and FA reached 23.5 MPa. SEM images revealed a denser, more cohesive matrix in the FA-based AAB, whereas CA-based AABs showed incomplete precursor dissolution and higher porosity, which contributed to the lower mechanical strength of CA-based AABs. These findings highlight the critical role of precursor selection in developing sustainable AABs from industrial byproducts and demonstrate how different formulations can be tailored for specific applications.

The increasing demand for durable infrastructure has intensified interest in understanding concrete behavior under dynamic loading, particularly fatigue. Although temperature changes have limited influence on concrete’s ultimate strength, they can substantially affect fatigue performance by accelerating microstructural degradation. A notable but insufficiently characterized phenomenon in this context is self-heating, an internal temperature rise observed during cyclic loading. This study examines self-heating in concrete through transient thermal finite element simulations performed on five specimen geometries commonly employed in compressive fatigue tests. The model decouples the mechanical effects, incorporating viscoelastic energy dissipation as the internal heat source. Complementary complex modulus (quasi-static) and tensile fatigue tests were conducted on saturated and dry concrete specimens to provide indirect support for the modelling approach. The simulations reproduced trends reported in literature, including higher temperatures at the specimen core. Simulations revealed that specimen geometry – particularly diameter – was found to strongly govern the thermal response. Saturation increased the complex modulus but had minimal effect on fatigue life. Overall, the numerical results are consistent with the hypothesis that viscoelastic dissipation contributes to self-heating, even if the resulting temperature rise is very small (order of 10 ^− 4 °C) under tensile fatigue conditions. The agreement between simulations and experiments reinforces that even small viscoelastic effects may contribute to temperature rise under cyclic loading. These findings highlight the importance of considering thermal effects in fatigue analyses and suggest that incorporating viscoelastic mechanisms may improve the representation of heat generation in concrete subjected to cyclic loading, improving durability assessments of concrete structures.

O trabalho objetiva analisar os efeitos da incorporação de quatro faixas granulométricas de resíduo de vidro, nas propriedades do estado fresco e do estado endurecido de argamassa para revestimento interno. O traço referência foi 1:0,8:6, em massa, e para a determinação da porcentagem de resíduo incorporado aos demais traços utilizou-se um software para avaliação do empacotamento de partículas, o EMMA. Para tal, foram realizados os ensaios de: índice de consciência, densidade de massa, teor de ar incorporado, squeeze-flow, resistências à compressão axial e à tração na flexão e resistência de aderência à tração. Constatou-se que que a argamassa produzida com a incorporação de pó de vidro verde e talco de vidro branco tiveram destaque em relação as demais, mantendo características como a trabalhabilidade, a relação a/c, e resultados médios de resistência à compressão próximos ao de referência.