An Experimental Study of Mortars with Recycled Ceramic Aggregates: Deduction and Prediction of the Stress-Strain

Abstract

The difficult current environmental situation, caused by construction industry residues containing ceramic materials, could be improved by using these materials as recycled aggregates in mortars, with their processing causing a reduction in their use in landfill, contributing to recycling and also minimizing the consumption of virgin materials. Although some research is currently being carried out into recycled mortars, little is known about their stress-strain (σ-ε); therefore, this work will provide the experimental results obtained from recycled mortars with recycled ceramic aggregates (with contents of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 50% and 100%), such as the density and compression strength, as well as the σ-ε curves representative of their behavior. The values obtained from the analytical process of the results in order to finally obtain, through numerical analysis, the equations to predict their behavior (related to their recycled content) are those of: σ (elastic ranges and failure maximum), ε (elastic ranges and failure maximum), and Resilience and Toughness. At the end of the investigation, it is established that mortars with recycled ceramic aggregate contents of up to 20% could be assimilated just like mortars with the usual aggregates, and the obtained prediction equations could be used in cases of similar applications.

Concrete-Based and Mixed Waste Aggregates in Rendering Mortars

“…Other authors that incorporated recycled ceramic masonry waste as aggregate in mortars also found a decrease in the bulk density of the mortars in the fresh and hardened state [4,11,12,18]. This is explained by the density of RA, which usually is lower than that of the natural aggregate.…”

“…The incorporation of recycled aggregates in cementitious materials is a possible solution for the disposal of these wastes, replacing the initial constituents and, simultaneously, avoiding landfill deposition of these raw materials. The scientific community has already started researching these applications and their introduction in mortars is growing [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…For the production of masonry mortar, recycled ceramic aggregates have been evaluated [3,4,6,11,12]. For rendering mortars, the incorporation of ceramic waste as aggregate was developed by Silva et al [18] and Lucas et al [19].…”

“…MRA is strongly influenced by the processing and treatment received. Notwithstanding the lack of studies on the incorporation of MRA, some authors investigated those recycled aggregates in masonry mortar [3,4,6,11,12,[24][25][26]. Only a small amount of research has evaluated the incorporation of MRA in rendering mortars.…”

Application of Bender Elements Technique in Testing of Anthropogenic Soil—Recycled Concrete Aggregate and Its Mixture with Rubber Chips

“…These limits are typical for the upper layer of the improved substrate [41]. Concrete aggregates required preliminary research on saturation in order to prevent the movement of water necessary for hydration [42]. The material did not show any binding properties.…”