Porcelain and red ceramic wastes used as replacements for coarse aggregate in concrete

Abstract

Recent advances in construction engineering have made the design of safe structures possible and attracted an increasing attention to the use of concrete for its beneficial properties. This has, in turn, instigated a lot of efforts aimed at improving the physical and chemical properties of concrete. This is while increasing numbers of industry are producing waste products that warrant to be reused in order to avoid their dumping into the environment. One way to prevent accumulation of waste products in the environment is to use them as useful substitute materials in concrete. Along these lines, the use of ceramic wastes in concrete has been widely investigated. Porcelain ceramic is a new generation of ceramics that is highly heat resistant and offers a great resistance against pressure; however, these ceramics cannot be recycled to return to the production line in factories and are inevitably dumped into the environment as waste products. In the present research, two types of porcelain and ordinary red ceramics were used as substitutes for coarse aggregates in concrete. For this purpose, 65 specimens were cast to test their compressive, tensile, and flexural strengths as well as their water absorption. It was found that porcelain tile waste was able to increase concrete compressive strength by up to 41% while the red ceramic one increased it by up to 29%. Additionally, porcelain was found capable of increasing tensile and flexural strengths by up to 41% and 67%, respectively. Water absorption tests revealed that while porcelain increased concrete water absorption by up to 54%, red ceramic waste increased it by 91%. The superior performance of porcelain over that of red ceramic waste was attributed to the high porosity of red ceramics.