Acidic solution effects on no-fines concrete produced by using recycled concrete as coarse aggregate

Abstract

This paper investigates durability of no fine concrete containing demolished concrete as coarse aggregate after crushing to different sizes. Different no fine concrete mixes were considered using Portland cement type I with two types of coarse aggregates, crushed demolished concrete and crushed natural gravel were used with two ratios by weight (1:5 and 1:7) C/Agg. Graded aggregate and single size were used with a maximum size of 20 mm. W /C ratio was kept as 0.4 for all mixes and super-plasticizer was required to keep the same flow and compaction factor value for all mixes. Cube specimens with 150mm were cured and divided to two parts, the first part was exposed to 60 cycles of freezing- thawing; the second part of the sample was immersed in Nitric Acids solution with pH of 3.5 for (7, 28, 90 and 180 days) and then tested for compressive strength. The results indicated that it is possible to produce homogenous and workable mixes by using demolished crushed concrete as coarse aggregate. The compressive strength after cycles of freezing- thawing and immersing in Nitric acid (HNO3) at (7, 28, 90 and 180) days was decreased for samples made with crushed demolished concrete. Also it is found that the performance of concrete mixes containing graded coarse aggregate and 1:5 cement/aggregate ratios was better than other mixes.