Waste glass recycling: The combined effect of particle size and proportion in concrete manufactured with waste recycled glass

Abstract

Concrete is the second most used material for construction. Natural or manufactured aggregate and cement is required to produce concrete. Depletion of natural resources has motivated construction industry sectors to look for partial or full replacement of aggregate and cement in concrete. Recycled glass is an alternate candidate for replacing mineral cement, fine aggregate, and coarse aggregate. In this research, the authors investigated the combined effect of partial replacement of those three components in a single mix over a total of 14 combination trial runs. Grain size and replacement proportion was the major variable in this research. The results of the investigation presented in this article show that the increase in particle size and replacement proportions of ground waste glass have both positive and negative effects on concrete properties. On the other hand, the durability of concrete manufactured with crushed and ground glass improved as replacement proportion increased while compressive and flexural strength decreased. In addition, replacing high proportion of cement with ground glass led to a significant decline in concrete properties. However, the results presented demonstrate it is viable to replace cement, fine aggregate, and coarse aggregate with an optimum of 10%, 15%, and 20% of crushed and ground waste glass, respectively, and produce concrete with acceptable fresh, hardened, and durability properties.