The utilisation of recycled concrete aggregate as partial sand replacement in wall panel production

Abstract

Recently, extensive research within the concrete industry has been devoted to a sustainable approach by using concrete waste as a natural aggregate replacement. The reason is that the volumes of building-related waste generated nowadays are becoming a significant threat to the environment but they may be used as a useful material in the construction industry. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effects of using recycled concrete aggregates as a partial fine aggregate replacement in mortar cubes and wall panels. Mortar cubes and wall panels sized 70.7 mm x 70.7 mm x 70.7 mm and 1000 mm x 300 mm x 100 mm, respectively, were prepared. The recycled concrete aggregate was mixed into the mortar at percentages of 0%, 50% and 100% of the total mortar volume and designated as 0RCA, 50RCA and 100RCA, respectively. The samples of both the mortar cubes and wall panels were assessed under a compressive strength test. The cubes samples were tested at the ages of 3 days, 14 days and 28 days. Meanwhile, the wall panels were compressively loaded for more than 28 days. It was found that the 0RCA mortar cubes represented the highest compressive strength compared to the other 50RCA and 100RCA samples by 46.6% and 38.8%, respectively. The 50RCA wall panels represented the highest ultimate load of 203.26 kN with strength effectiveness of 179.75% compared to 0RCA and 50RCA wall panels. This indicates that recycled concrete aggregates can be a useful material in the production of wall panels.