Promulgation of sustainable palm oil clinker sand in the development of structural and non‐structural lightweight foamed concrete

Abstract

AbstractThe excessive exploitation of natural resources, such as mining or river sand in concrete, has resulted in several catastrophic disasters worldwide. Furthermore, the low compressive strength of lightweight concrete (LFC) has limited its use as structural concrete. In this research, the feasibility of replacing natural mining sand (MS) as fine aggregates in the development of LFC with local agro‐industrial waste material, namely palm oil clinker (POC), which can be considered a sustainable material, at different replacement ratios of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% was investigated. Because of the porous structure of POC, a volume‐based method was employed in the mix design of using the specific gravities to produce LFC with three different target densities of 1100, 1300, and 1500 kg/m3. The investigated parameters include workability, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. Overall, 100% replacement of MS volume with POC with the sieve size below 0.6 mm resulted in a 90‐day compressive strength of 26.7 MPa in the LFC with a density of 1500 kg/m3. Similar to the compressive strength, the utilization of the sustainable POC as fine aggregates slightly improved the tensile and flexural strengths of LFC. On the other hand, replacing 100% of MS with POC with the sieve size below 0.6 mm reduced the flow test results of LFC from 405 to 350 mm. The use of POC in LFC improved the bonding between cementitious material and fine aggregate, according to the UPV results.