Strength and performance of reinforced incinerator bottom ash concrete cube

Abstract

Municipal solid waste incineration produces non-combustible by-product known as bottom ash. Increase in waste production leads to increase in bottom ash, which raises environmental concerns and management issues. With the parameters and properties of bottom ash are in close agreement with those of aggregates used in concrete making, bottom ash has been adopted for reutilization in civil engineering. However, the workability of the concrete made with partial substitution of aggregate with bottom ash from local municipal solid waste incinerator has never been addressed. This paper aims to evaluate the performance and properties of concrete cube made with partial substitution of aggregate with bottom ash from Pulau Pangkor municipal solid waste incinerator in Perak. The content of bottom ash substitution in concrete cube made in this study were varied at 10, 20 and 30 percent of aggregate. All samples were tested for its workability, water absorption, compressive strength, and resistant towards fire. It was found that the performance of concrete with partial substitution of aggregate with bottom ash reduced with increased in substitution content in all aspects. However, the performance of the concrete with 10 percent bottom ash substitution to aggregate was acceptable and closed to that of control concrete. It has been demonstrated through this study that the use of bottom ash as partial substitution of aggregate in concrete making is possible at very low content. However, there are huge needs of further enhancement in manufacturing methodology in order to produce concrete with partial substitution of aggregate with bottom ash that outperform – or in closed agreement with – the control concrete.