Glass powder as replacement of cement for concrete – an investigative study

Abstract

Cement production involves extensive energy absorption and emits huge quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. The production rates are increasing annually to meet the ever increasing demand with increased energy absorption and CO2 emission. Hence, it is imperative to use materials which can replace use of cement to some extent. Conversely, waste glass is being dumped in the landfills. This practice is environmentally unsustainable since glass is nonbiodegradable. Recently it's revealed that glass when grinded to a particular fineness exhibits cementitious properties due to pozzolanic reaction. This paper investigates the fresh, mechanical and durability properties of concretes made with cement replaced by coarse glass powder (<150 µm) at various replacement levels and employing different curing conditions. The replacement levels employed were 0%, 15%, 30% and 50% by weight of cement, while the curing regimes followed were ambient, Elevated Temperature Curing (ETC) @ 40˚C and water. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) techniques were performed on cement and glass powder to investigate the microstructure and chemical composition of the materials. The initial findings show that 30% is the ideal replacement level as it exhibits quite comparable strengths, better workability and higher resistance to chloride ion penetration compared to the control mix.

High volume Portland cement replacement: A review

“…Nanomaterials like nano calcium carbonate can be introduced to react with the unreacted silica and alumina to strengthen the mix. The curing method used also affects the strength development of concrete [74]. Most of the researchers cited in Table 4 used standard water curing, and this is largely unattainable in practice.…”

“…The strength development of GP concrete has been found to depend on the water/binder ratio [73], the size of glass particles [74,75] and the type of glass used [76,77]. Optimum replacement level in terms of compressive strength ranges from 5% À 20% depending on the factors above [71,78,79].…”

Shrinkage, cementitious paste volume, and wet packing density of concrete

“…Although lowering W/CM can decrease the long-term shrinkage, it will cause an increase in the autogenous shrinkage and thus short-term shrinkage. 89 Then, although partial replacement of cement could decrease the carbon footprint of concrete, [90][91][92] it is not clear if it is beneficial to the overall strength-and-shrinkage limits of concrete. To study the effect of filler replacement of partial cement, two representative factors expressed as the ratio of 28-day compressive strength to respectively the 28-and 91-day shrinkages were presented in Table 4 (Note the concrete specimens have been arranged by their W/CM instead of by Group number) for all concrete specimens alongside with their obtained compressive strength and shrinkages.…”

Impact of condensed silica fume on splitting tensile strength and brittleness of high strength self‐compacting concrete

“…SCC has excellent filling and passing abilities that enable it to fill all recesses, spaces and voids without sign of segregation so as to prevent to prevent plastic settlement cracks that improves the durability 1,2 and reduces carbon footprint of structures. [3][4][5] It particularly facilitates the concrete placement in structural member with congested steel reinforcement [6][7][8][9] or concrete-filled-steel tube member when limited vibration is permitted. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] It also makes the concrete production more homogenous and efficient.…”

“…Self‐compacting concrete (SCC) is a type of concrete that can self‐consolidate without external vibration. SCC has excellent filling and passing abilities that enable it to fill all recesses, spaces and voids without sign of segregation so as to prevent to prevent plastic settlement cracks that improves the durability 1,2 and reduces carbon footprint of structures 3–5 . It particularly facilitates the concrete placement in structural member with congested steel reinforcement 6–9 or concrete‐filled‐steel tube member when limited vibration is permitted 10–17 .…”