Engineering attributes of alkali-activated mortars containing ceramic tiles waste as aggregates replacement: Effect of high-volume fly ash inclusion

Abstract

Fast depletion of the natural aggregates and an ever-increasing carbon footprint in environment has enforced humanity to take an immediate remedial measure. Meanwhile, the wastes generated from ceramic materials by various industries worldwide became responsible for growing landfill problems. Several alkali-activated mortars mortars containing ceramic tiles waste as natural aggregates replacement have been designed and evaluated to assess the effectiveness of such waste on the engineering characteristics, such as compressive strength, drying shrinkage, abrasion resistance and water absorption performance of the obtained mortars. The prepared mortars enclosed high volume Fly Ash (FA), Ceramic Tiles Waste (CTW) and Ground Blast Furnace Slag (GBFS). It has been observed that the use of 100% of CTW as fine aggregates replacement was shown to achieve strengths comparable to the control specimen, whereas the inclusion of high volume of FA contents as GBFS substitute in the proposed mix design was discerned to affect significantly on their early strength, thus enhanced the durability performance in term of reducing the total drying shrinkage. However, the results showed that the porosity and abrasion resistance are negatively affected due to increasing FA level. The grinding depth and waster absorption percentage of the mortars was found to increase with the increase of FA content as GBFS replacement.