Abstract
Red mud is an industrial waste material generated during production of alumina from bauxite by Bayer process. These industrial wastes hold some heavy metals which are hazardous in nature. The aim of the paper is to investigate the possibility of partially replacing Portland cement in concrete by red mud and evaluating its compressive and splitting tensile strength. This study examines the effect of red mud on the properties of hardened concrete and compares with the conventional concrete. The test results revealed that 15% of cement can be optimally replaced by red mud beyond which compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength starts decreasing. Cement replacement by red mud up to 15% yields characteristic strength greater than the conventional cubes. Further increase in percentage of red mud by 20, 25 and 30% tends to decrease the compressive strength. However, the optimum replacement level was observed as 15% without decrease in strength. Key words: Red mud, workability, bayer process, compressive strength, split tensile strength.
Highlights
Red mud is the main waste generated from bauxite ore during production of aluminium and alumina by the Bayer process (Ashok and Suresh Kumar, 2014)
It is observed that the rate of gain in strength properties namely compressive, spilt tensile and flexure increases with increase in red mud content up to 15% and beyond
The above results show that the maximum utilization of red mud in concrete is 15% as a partial replacement of cement
Summary
Red mud is the main waste generated from bauxite ore during production of aluminium and alumina by the Bayer process (Ashok and Suresh Kumar, 2014). The world's production of bauxite in 2009 was 205 million tons, and the main producing countries were Australia, China, Brazil, Guinea, India and Jamaica (Ribeiro et al, 2011). As per records of 2009, Brazil ranks third in bauxite production by producing 26.6 million tons of bauxite. It holds the world's third largest bauxite ore reserves (around 3.5 billion tons), concentrated mainly in the northern part of the country. 0.3 to 1.0 tons of red mud waste are generated per ton of aluminium produced. Brazil has discarded about 10.6 million tons/year of caustic red mud in recent years and the worldwide generation of red mud exceeds 117 million tons/year
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