Experimental study on partial replacement of fine aggregates using recycled plastic waste beads in concrete

Abstract

Recycling and reuse of waste products are required for achieving sustainable development in construction sector. In order to meet the growing demand for fine aggregates, numerous research studies have already been reported in literatures on the feasibility of using several industrial byproducts such as copper slag and waste foundry sand as partial replacement material for conventional fine aggregates, and promising results have been obtained. In this research, an attempt is made to use Recycled Plastic Wastes (RPW) obtained by recycling only plastic carry bag wastes as fine aggregates in cement concrete production. Different percentages of untreated and chemically treated RPW fine aggregates were used to replace conventional fine aggregates, and the properties of concrete such as compressive strength, flexural strength and splitting tensile strength were determined. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images were obtained from the tested samples of concrete. The quality of concrete with RPW fine aggregates was determined using Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) method and compared with that of control concrete. The test results showed that concrete with treated RPW fine aggregates achieved higher strength than the concrete with untreated RPW fine aggregates. Concrete with strength up to 80% of control concrete could be achieved by using 10% of treated RPW fine aggregates for replacing conventional fine aggregates. The quality grading of concrete based on UPV tests was “excellent” or “good” for all levels of replacement considered in the present study. Equations based on regression analysis were proposed to predict the flexural and splitting tensile strength of concrete with untreated and treated RPW fine aggregates.