PAKIT (Dioscorea luzonensis Schauer) STARCH AS AN ORGANIC ADMIXTURE FOR IMPROVED COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF CONCRETE

This paper examined for the first time the incorporation of Pakit (Dioscorea Luzonensis Schauer) starch into concrete mixture to improve the compressive strength of hardened concrete. Through an experimental design, results were compared to a conventional concrete. The mixture would be a pakit powder with percentages in weight 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0%. These samples were tested at 7, 14 and 28 curing days respectively, with fixed amount of water-cement ratio of 0.50. The concrete with pakit were then tested for compressive strength and was found out that the concrete with 2.0% pakit showed significant improvements of 12.21% when compared with conventional concrete.  These results proved that the use of pakit starch as organic admixture significantly improved the compressive strength of concrete.