Surface Modified Synthetic Plastic Aggregate for Concrete – Experimental and Analytical Studies

Abstract

To reduce the plastic waste accumulation, and also to decrease the consumption volume of natural resources for concrete production, in this paper, an attempt is made to produce novel lightweight coarse aggregate using Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) based plastic waste. The aggregates were manufactured manually by processing the PET waste that included cleaning, shredding, melting and moulding. The use of plastic aggregate normally reduces the strength of concrete primarily due to smoother surface and poor bonding with adjacent cement matrix. Towards improving the bonding characteristics with cement matrix, different surface treatment procedures employing dispersion of sand and ceramic waste particles were tried. The experimental study consisted of using different percentages of plastic aggregate as a partial replacement for conventional coarse aggregate. The mechanical properties of concrete such as workability, density, compressive strength and flexural-tensile strength were determined. Correlations studies to predict the concrete strength based on a percentage of replacement, and equations relating compressive and flexural-tensile strengths of the concrete were also conducted. The studies indicated that it is possible to improve the bonding property of plastic aggregate for achieving strength and integrity similar to that of control concrete.