An Optimal Utilization of Waste Materials in Concrete to Enhance the Strength Property: An Experimental Approach and Possibility of 3D Printing Technology

Abstract

Concrete is a versatile composite material that consists of binding and filler materials with calculated water. Due to the sharp rising on the cost of these construction materials, the demands to search for various alternatives have increased. It is a challenge for the researcher’s community to arrive at suitable alternatives without compromising the strength and durability aspects of conventional concrete. Many researchers observed that partial replacement of alternatives on the conventional materials can be suggested way to obtain a desired outcome instead of full replacement and all were in progress stage. The current scenario of the research in terms of arriving suitable alternatives has turned the attention towards the possible utilization of waste materials into the conventional concrete. In India, there was huge availability of waste materials and every year it is simply dumped into the site in an unutilized way. Here an attempt is made to effectively utilize some of the waste materials such as cow dung ash, rice husk ash, sugarcane bagasse ash, GGBS and marble dust into the concrete in the partial replacement in terms of volume fraction 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%. The study is focused to estimate the compressive strength of the concrete utilized with those waste materials. For this experimental study totally 126 cube specimens of size 150 mm × 150 mm were casted and water cured for 7 and 28 days. Compressive strength test results were tabulated and compared with various waste materials utilized. It is observed that the GGBS is found to be better among the other waste materials and the optimum ratio was identified as 40% replacement. In this paper, it is also discussed about the 3d printing technology which has drawn the attention of researchers in the world. The scope and possibility of 3d printing of concrete with the utilization of waste materials are highlighted in considering the views of future research and markets of construction sectors.