Abstract
Coconut fiber was used in coconut shell concrete (CSC) and its durability properties were studied. The properties include: water absorption, volume of permeable pore voids, rapid chloride penetration test, sorptivity and resistance at elevated temperature. For comparison purpose, these properties were also studied on conventional concrete (CC) with coconut fibers. Three different curing conditions viz. full water immersion, site curing and air-dry conditions were employed except for temperature resistance study in which only full water immersion was used. Test results show that the durability properties were better in full water immersion condition in case of CC mixes and in site curing condition in case of CSC mixes. Temperature resistance tests gave a minimum guarantee of both CC and CSC mixes without and with coconut fibers for 2 h resistance and hence they were deemed safe for construction.
Highlights
To save the natural resources from over extraction of aggregates from rocks and sand from rivers, many alternate materials are tried in the production of concrete
Since the mechanical and bond properties of coconut shell concrete (CSC) with coconut fibers were already shown to be in acceptable range [9], we investigated its durability properties in this study
Figure shows the water absorption of CC, CCF, CSC and CSCF mixes under W1, W2, and W3 curing conditions
Summary
To save the natural resources from over extraction of aggregates from rocks and sand from rivers, many alternate materials are tried in the production of concrete. Literature states that the introduction of supplementary materials into the concrete can be divided generally into six classes, namely industrial wastes (fly ash, silica fume, ground granulated blast furnace slag, metakaolin etc.), nano industrial wastes (nanosilica, nanotitanium, tiania–silica nanosphere, nanoalumina, nanometakaolin, carbon nano tubes etc.), agriculture–farming wastes (bamboo, wheat, barley, corn, olive, banana, sisal, date palm, elephant grass etc.), aquaculture–farming wastes (oyster, periwinkle, mussel etc.), minerals (calcite, diatomite, zeolite, perlite etc.) and dust and powders (limestone powder, brick powder, waste marble dust and powder, waste ceramic powder, ground pumice powder, quartz powder etc.) [3] In line with these alternate materials, coconut shell and coconut fibers can be added to the agriculture–farming group, and it has been proven that coconut shell (CS) waste can be used as an aggregate in place of conventional stone aggregate [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
