Abstract
Concrete is one of the broadly used construction materials in the construction industry. This research intends to recommend the replacement of conventional coarse aggregates with recycled lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA) which offers several advantages such as lightweight, low cost, and easy availability. Lightweight concrete (LWC) offers numerous benefits; therefore, many researchers are using lightweight aggregate to produce lightweight structural composites concrete to compensate heavy loads by reducing the concrete self-weight due to lower density of lightweight concrete, improving in thermal properties and fire resistance, saving the cost of transportation and handling of precast units in the site. Different percentages (0, 0.15, 0.30, and 0.45%) of volume fraction of barchip polypropylene (BPP) fibre have been incorporated to improve the mechanical properties of lightweight aggregate concrete (LWA) concrete. In this study, the mixture of crushed lightweight expanded clay aggregate (CLECA) and barchip polypropylene (BPP) fibre have been used to achieve compressive strength between 28 and 37 MPa at 28-days with an oven-dry density ranged between 1900 and 2000 kg/m3. It is found that the inclusion of BPP fibres at an optimum volume fraction concrete enhances the compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and modulus of rupture. The compressive strength of the lightweight aggregate concrete containing 0.45% volume fraction of BPP fibre (CLLWAC-BPP0.45%) had achieved the highest compressive strength of 37 MPa at 28-days with a significant increment of about 31% compared to plain concrete. Hence, the findings of this research showed that the development of eco-friendly lightweight structural composites can be used as an alternative solution for conventional lightweight concrete, infrastructure and marine fields application.
Highlights
The advancements of technology and effectiveness in the concrete industry have contributed to fast growth for building materials
1) The inclusion of barchip polypropylene (BPP) fibre has a marginal effect on density
2) The inclusion of BPP fibre in CLLWAC had reduced the workability, where the rate of slump drop accelerated as the fibre content increased
Summary
The advancements of technology and effectiveness in the concrete industry have contributed to fast growth for building materials. The development and construction of these buildings and infrastructures demand an enormous amount of materials. Among several types of LWC, lightweight aggregate concrete (LWAC) is one of the most common techniques produce by researchers (Polat et al, 2010; Yew et al, 2021). Many researchers from different countries are promoting waste recycle to reduce the pollution rate of Earth such as excess use of non-renewable energy. The countries that are carrying out such actions are Austria which has the highest rate of recycling at 63% of all waste is diverted from landfills. Carrying out ecofriendly action in construction or marine fields such as using those recycled materials, using by-product aggregate and energy saving in the construction field is one of the basic strategies of sustainable development since it is relevant to environmental impact (Bogas et al, 2015). Nonexperimental research has been made by incorporating barchip polypropylene fibre with the combination of crushed lightweight expanded clay aggregate (CLECA) technique to investigate its impacts on the mechanical properties of the lightweight concrete
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