Abstract

The aim of the study is to assess the quality of concrete produced with polymer waste as partial replacement of fine aggregate with a view to establishing areas where such concrete can be used. It is an experimental research that entails the following steps: First, the polymer waste material, PWM, was collected from dumps and processed; then its melting point determined. A varying proportion of PWM was used as partial replacement of fine aggregate A nominal mix of 1:3:6 was used to prepare 150×150×150 mm concrete cubes specimens with different proportion of 0, 10, 20 and 30%, respectively PWM partial substitution of fine aggregate. Samples were subjected to workability, compressive and tensile strength tests. Results show that PWM content has inverse relationship with the workability, compressive and tensile strengths. For example, an increase of 30% PWM results to about 53 and 73.3% decrease in compressive and tensile strengths, respectively. The compressive strength of the samples is in the range of 22.8-12.3 N/mm² while the tensile strength ranges from 1.10-0.56 N/mm². It is recommended that the concrete should not be used for structural work but such concrete has high water retention capacity. As such, the possibility of using it as a nuclear radiation shield should be investigated.

Keywords:

Compressive strength, concrete, fine aggregates, partial replacement, polymer waste,

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Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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