Comparative Study on Concrete with Sawdust as a Partial Replacement for Sand by Conventional and Self-curing Methods

Abstract

The environment is threatened by the large-scale mining of natural resources like sand. Therefore, it becomes necessary for us to consider using industrial by-products instead of natural materials in order to save the ecosystem. In this study utilization of saw dust generated by wood industry in concrete has been explored. The purpose of making sawdust concrete is to decrease the waste of sawdust, which could protect the environment in the long run. Concrete is most widely used material in the construction industry, it needs a lot of water for its curing, so it is an urgent need of research to minimize the use of water to cure concrete. Since we identify water shortage is mounting day by day, so vital research should be needed to do the curing without water. So the self-curing method is adopted to minimize the usage of water and it can be adopted where there is acute shortage of water. As the percentage of sawdust content increased from 10% to 20% the compressive strength decreased. Optimum replacement of sand with sawdust has been found to be 10%. By comparison between conventionally and self- cured concrete with respect to its compressive strength and density, compressive strength of conventionally cured concrete gives better result than self-cured concrete. There is reduction in density of sawdust concrete with increase in percentage of sawdust in concrete and also there is decrease in density of self-cured concrete as compared with conventionally cured concrete.