Abstract
River Sand is one of the basic ingredients used in the production of concrete. Consequently, continuous consumption of sand in construction industry contributes significantly to depletion of natural resources. To achieve more sustainable construction materials, this paper reports the use of iron ore tailings (IOT) as replacement for river sand in concrete production. IOT is a waste product generated from the production of iron ore and disposed to land fill without any economic value. Concrete mixtures containing different amount of IOT were designed for grade C30 with water to cement ratio of 0.60. The percentage ratios of the river sand replacements by IOT were 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Concrete microstructure test namely, XRD and Field Emission Scanned Electron Microscopic/Energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (FESEM/EDX) were conducted for control and IOT concretes in order to determine the interaction and performance of the concrete containing IOT. Test results indicated that the slump values of 130 mm and 80 to 110 mm were recorded for the control and IOT concretes respectively. The concrete sample of 50% IOT recorded the highest compressive strength of 37.7 MPa at 28 days, and the highest flexural strength of 5.5 MPa compared to 4.7 MPa for reference concrete. The texture of the IOT is rough and angular which was able to improve the strength of the concrete.
Highlights
The challenge for the civil engineering community with the concept of sustainable development involves the use of waste materials and by-products at reasonable cost with the lowest possible environmental impact
Fresh control concretes (M0) is more cohesive and workable than concrete containing iron ore tailings (IOT). This might be attributed to the higher specific surface area of IOT, which absorbed more water compared to the river sand
It can be seen that, the fresh density was lower in control specimens as compared to those of IOT concrete, all of them are above the minimum limits of 2300 kg/m3 specified by the BS EN 12350-6 [9]
Summary
The challenge for the civil engineering community with the concept of sustainable development involves the use of waste materials and by-products at reasonable cost with the lowest possible environmental impact. Other environmental issues of Sand mining are depletion of virgin deposits, collapsing of river banks, water table lowering and water pollution [3]. The remedies for these impacts are the use of waste material as alternatives to river sand. Increase in the production of iron ore for economic development worldwide has generated massive amount of iron ore tailing, which are frequently being discarded as wastes. This has led to serious environmental deterioration. The objective of this study is to investigate the performance of concrete with IOT as replacement for river sand in terms of strength and microstructure analysis
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