Recycling woven plastic sack waste and PET bottle waste as fiber in recycled aggregate concrete: An experimental study

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the potential engineering of Recycled PET Bottles Waste (RPET) and Recycled Woven Plastic Sack Waste (RWS) fiber reinforced Recycled Aggregate Concrete (RAC). Currently, the amount of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) and plastic waste are rapidly increasing and becoming a burden for many nations. The present research is an effort to reduce the amount of solid waste as a good solution for waste management and preserve the environment. The effects of RWS and RPET fibers on RAC were evaluated based on mechanical properties and durability of concrete. The experimental results indicated that RPET and RWS fibers have high alkali resistance in alkaline environments and showed no detectable degradation in RAC at 90 days. The combination of Silica Fume (SF) and RPET fiber increased 3.6–9% compressive strength, 16.9–21.5% elastic modulus, 11.8–20.3% splitting tensile strength, 7–15% shear strength of RAC in comparison with RAC samples without fiber, while these values in RWS fiber reinforced RAC were lower. RWS and RPET fiber enhanced the post-cracking behavior of RAC. The contribution of RPET in the improvement of the RAC properties was better than that of RWS fiber although the RWS fiber has higher tensile strength than that of RPET fiber. Furthermore, SF and the proposed mixing technique increased the performance of RAC with 100% coarse RCA and compensated the loss of the compressive strength due to RPET and RWS fiber.