Enhancement Conventional Concrete using locally available Waste Material

Abstract

Concreteis a nifty construction material. Concrete has some attractive properties whenit is newly mixed, it is plastic and malleable, but when it is hardened itbecomes very strong and durable. These qualities make concrete unique fromother materials. For the reason that concrete is the main construction materialacross the world and widely used in all kinds of civil engineering works, suchas for building skyscrapers, dams, bridges,barrage, highways, and houses. As weknow that aggregate represents about 70-80% of concrete elements, so it will beuseful to recycle the aggregate for construction works and also to solve theenvironmental problems. Iraq is suffering a lot of the problem of rubble(debris)  as a result of the wars that occurred duringthe past years, on the other hand in some places have been converted buildingsfrom residential buildings to commercial buildings, so these destroyedbuildings constitute the problem of environmental pollutants. To minimize the trouble of excess of waste material itis suitable steps to utilize the recycled aggregates provide that the desiredfinal product will meet the standards. In the present investigation adjustmentsto traditional mix designs ofconcrete using locally available waste material was studied experimentally.The experimental programconsisted of nine mixes with mix proportions [1:2:4] and constant slumpequal to (13) cm were constructed and tested. These nine mixes classified intothree groups based on the types of sand and gravel used in all mixes.Theexperimental results showed that, the optimum mix was Mix2 in Group (B) with (cement : 50%naturally sand and 50% crushed recycled concrete as sand : crushed boulder asgravel), which enhance the properties of the existing concrete , such that, increasing compressive strength by (18.6%), flexuralstrength by (8.3%) and splitting strength by (28.9%), as comparing with Mix1 (Reference mix).