Challenges of Using Agricultural Solid Wastes as Aggregate in Structural Concrete

Abstract

Considering sustainability in all stages of construction engineering is a need to protect environment, preserve natural resources and the earth for our own and future generations. An effective way to mitigate environmental impacts of the construction industry is the use of sustainable materials in construction. Among all types of construction materials, concrete is the most-used material for civil and industrial infrastructures. Therefore, successful production and application of green concrete is vital in the industry. To achieve sustainability in concrete production, there are a lot of efforts of researchers to produce concretes by incorporating wastes and by-product materials as cement and/or aggregate replacement in the concrete mixtures. For the past decades to now researchers are trying to develop sustainable concrete using agricultural solid wastes as the aggregate to produce structural concrete. However, these types of concretes are not practically used in the construction industry. This paper is a brief review on the oil palm shell concrete mixtures and discussed the challenges and barriers of implementing this concrete in the practice.