Optimum Utilization of Locally Available Waste Materials in Enhancing the Properties of Concrete

Abstract

The current challenges faced by the civil professionals are unbearable high cost of construction materials, green house effects and disposal of waste materials. All these problems are raised due to the limited supply of natural materials, more construction demand, and enormous generation of waste materials from various sources of occupations etc. The superlative solution for all the problems is to utilize the possible maximum extend of waste materials to the manufacturing of construction materials without compromising its properties. In regarding that, an attempt is made to study the possible way of utilizing the locally available waste products such as sugar cane bagasse, wild green grass and rice husk in to the concrete. All these waste products are dried and burnt into fine ashes. These ashes are added in to the concrete with various proportions such as 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30% for examining the strength and durability properties of M20 grade concrete. The test results reveal that, the waste products can be effectively in to the concrete and the optimum proportion found to be around 15% to 20%.