Oil Palm Shell Concrete Research Articles

The Influence of Thickness and Mesh Orientation on The Impact Resistance Performance of Geogrid Reinforced Oil Palm Shell Concrete

The Influence of Thickness and Mesh Orientation on The Impact Resistance Performance of Geogrid Reinforced Oil Palm Shell Concrete

Mechanical Properties and Fracture Patterns in Oil Palm Shell Concrete with Various Cement Types Using Digital Image Correlation

Mechanical Properties and Fracture Patterns in Oil Palm Shell Concrete with Various Cement Types Using Digital Image Correlation

SHEAR RESISTANCE OF OIL PALM SHELL REINFORCED CONCRETE BEAMS CAST WITH SHEAR REINFORCEMENT

Research on the use of Oil Palm Shell (OPS) to replace coarse aggregates in concrete to date has been focusing on the material properties of oil palm shell concrete (OPSC). So far, there has been a very limited amount of work conducted to investigate the shear performance of the OPSC beams indicating similar shear strength to that of normal-weight concrete (NWC) beams. This study investigates the shear failure mechanism of OPSC beams cast with shear reinforcement. The test results recorded from 11 OPSC beams and 5 NWC beams, simply supported with two-point loads, are presented. The variables considered include the concrete compressive strength, flexural reinforcement, shear-span, and shear-link spacing. The observed shear failure mechanism of OPSC beams was found to be similar to that of an NWC beam while the shear crack formation and shear resistance of OPSC beams are slightly higher (3% to 14%) and (4.2% to 8.5%), respectively. Comparative studies using the current provisions of EC2 and BS8110 have been performed and found that both codes’ predictions, show good agreement with only a slight overestimation (VTest/VBS of 0.988) on the shear resistance, were consistent with the tests.

The Effect of Curing and W/c ratio Differences on Mechanical Behaviour of Oil Palm Shell Concrete with Fiber Mask

The Effect of Curing and W/c ratio Differences on Mechanical Behaviour of Oil Palm Shell Concrete with Fiber Mask

OIL PALM SHELL CONCRETE (OPSC): A SHORT REVIEW

With the increase of the world’s population, industrial development and the construction of housebuilding and infrastructure activities, the demand for construction material is increasing. Disposals of agricultural waste have been making serious damages to the environment. Thus, by replacing the conventional raw materials used in concrete today by agricultural waste will intensely decrease unwanted impacts caused by the current concrete industry. A novel replacement for the conventional aggregate in the past 4 decades has been the utilization of oil palm shells (OPS) in concrete. This paper reviews published reports on OPS being used as aggregate for concrete in its current stand. Physical properties of OPS, fresh properties of OPSC, mechanical properties of OPSC, Structural behaviour and OPS with other materials have all been reviewed in this paper. Recently, however, development in high yield oil palm fruit has led to waning compressive strengths. This review also indicates the necessity for new investigations based on the new fruit breeding type of oil palm tree which is known as Tenera OPS.

Mechanical Properties and Flexural Response of Palm Shell Aggregate Lightweight Reinforced Concrete Beam

This work focuses on examining the mechanical characteristics and flexural response of reinforced concrete (RC) beams by incorporating oil palm shell (OPS) lightweight aggregate from oil palm shell waste. The OPS aggregates are replaced in various percentages, such as 0 to 50% of natural coarse aggregate (NCA). Mechanical properties of OPS concrete were conducted, and these properties were used to quantify the flexural performance of RC beams. Five RC beams with several gradations of OPS aggregates were cast and tested for this investigation. The first cracking, ultimate strength, load-deflection behavior, ductility index, and failure patterns of OPS aggregate beams were investigated as the corresponding behaviors to the NCA concrete beam. The fresh properties analysis demonstrated lessening the slump test by varied concentrations of OPS concrete. Furthermore, compressive strength was reduced by 44.73%, 50.83%, 53.33%, and 57.22% compared to 10%, 15%, 20%, and 50% OPC substitution at 28 days. Increasing OPS content in concrete mixes decreased splitting tensile strength, comparable to the compressive strength test. Modulus of rupture and modulus of elasticity experiments exhibited a similar trend toward reduction over the whole range of OPS concentrations (0–50%) in concrete. It was revealed that the flexural capacity of beams tends to decrease the strength with the increased proportion of OPS aggregate. Moreover, crack patterns and failure modes of beams are also emphasized in this paper for the variation of OPS replacement in the NCA. The OPS aggregate RC beam’s test results have great potential to be implemented in low-cost civil infrastructures.

Influence of Superplasticizer Dosage on the Workability and Compressive Strength of Tenera Oil Palm Shell Concrete

This paper investigates the effects of superplasticizers (SP) on Tenera oil palm shell concrete (Tenera OSPC) in comparison to normal weight concrete (NWC) with similar strengths. Two types of Tenera OSPCs were examined: one with coarse-sized aggregates (coarse OPSC) and the other with fine-sized aggregates (fine OPSC). Two methods were employed in this study: in the first method, SP was added while maintaining a constant water-to-cement (w/c) ratio, and in the second method, the water content was reduced by adding SP while keeping the slump similar to the original mix without SP. The results of the first method indicate that a maximum SP dosage of 0.3% is optimal for both types of Tenera OSPC, although it is recommended to use a lower dosage for fine OPSC to prevent segregation. For the second method, it was found that SP dosages of ≤1% are not as effective as observed for NWC when the w/c ratio is reduced, indicating that higher dosages are required. The study identified that SP does not function as intended with Tenera OSPC most probably due to the chemical processes involved.

Effects of treatment for raw oil palm shell on compressive strength of oil palm shell concrete

This paper presents test results of thirty-two OPSC (Oil Palm Shell Concrete) cubes cast with OPS (Oil Palm Shell) under different treatment condition and with different cement content. The study concludes that OPSC cast using fully treated (Wash-Dry-Sieve) OPS yields the highest compressive strength, an increase of 65% in comparison with using untreated OPS. The increase in strength can be attributed to 1) Removal of residual oil on OPS surface via washing with detergent, mass 2% of the dry OPS mass, and 2) Removal of sub-2mm particles in OPS via sieving comprising of soil and OPS fibres. OPSC can develop compressive strength at a higher rate with washing, drying and sieving treatment performed on OPS compared with concrete cast with untreated OPS.

Emerging Tenera oil palm shell concrete: Mix design and cost analyses

The utilization of oil palm shell (OPS) in concrete dates back since four decades ago. While most research has only been done on the Dura-OPS as coarse aggregate in concrete, few research has been done on Tenera-OPS. The Tenera-OPS is obtained by a hybrid crossbreeding between Dura and Pisifera type fruits to obtain a thinner shell in the palm oil fruit to produce 30% more palm oil. Tenera-OPS has different physical properties compared to Dura-OPS, which could alter the mechanical behaviour of concrete. Therefore, this paper has studied mix designs of Tenera-OPS concrete (Tenera-OPSC) to investigate its physical characteristics, and compressive strength and has compared to those of Dura-OPSC from literature. It has been found that compressive strength of 20.24 MPa could only be produced with very high cement content of 1050 kg/m3. This study has shown that the compressive strength of Tenera-OPSC is reduced by 55 – 72% by using the most common acceptable mix design used for Dura-OPSC. It has been found that Tenera-OPS in concrete swells and shrinks during the hardening process which causes de-bonding between the Tenera-OPS and the cement matrix, which is believed to be the main reason for the lower compressive strength. A cost analysis was also done to compare the costs between Tenera-OPSC and normal weight concrete (NWC) of similar grade. The cost of Tenera-OPSC has been found to be 2% lower than that of NWC.

A study on the integrated implementation of supplementary cementitious material and coarse aggregate for sustainable concrete

This paper presents the investigation of energy efficacy, strength maturation, and environmental management of palm oil industrial waste materials, such as palm oil fuel ash (POFA) and oil palm shell (OPS). The industrial by-product POFA was used as partial, and the agro-based waste material OPS was employed as an absolute replacement of ordinary portland cement (OPC) and conventional natural coarse aggregate, respectively, in manufacturing sustainable lightweight concrete. The fresh concrete properties (workability and density), ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), compressive strength, water absorption, residual strength, thermal conductivity, and microstructural analysis have been investigated and reported. Four different concrete mixes with densities ranging from 1610 kg/m3 to 1935 kg/m3 were produced by replacing the OPC with POFA by a weight proportion of 0%, 10%, 30%, and 50%. Maximum compressive strength of 42.8 MPa was found at 365-day for 10% POFA based oil palm shell concrete (OPSC). The samples were exposed to selected peak temperatures (400 °C) to determine the residual strength at 28-, 56-, 90-, and 365-day. The UPV and compressive strength tests were performed for both heated and normal samples. The energy-saving status for POFA based OPSC was investigated by performing the thermal conductivity test at 365-day. The thermal conductivity of POFA based OPSC exerted lower values compared to that without POFA. The microstructure with the phase of developed fibrous C–S–H and pores inside the concrete were characterized and analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. The largest micro-cracks between coarse aggregates and cement paste were found in concretes containing 50% POFA, and the smallest one was for 10% POFA based OPSC. Considering the optimization in terms of compressive strength, thermal conductivity, residual compressive strength, and microstructural analysis, it is recommended that the inclusion of POFA in OPSC can be considered a structural grade concrete along with the thermal insulation.

Evaluating Pre-Corrosion and Post-Corrosion of Oil Palm Shell Concrete with Non-Destructive Testing

Corrosion of reinforcement can decrease the quality and cause damage to reinforced concrete, so it is necessary to know the resistance of concrete, especially with oil palm shells (OPS) and mask fibers in a corrosive environment. This study aims to determine the effect of corrosion levels on OPS concrete and mask fiber using the NDT (non-destructive testing) method. Oil palm shells are a 10% replacement for coarse aggregate in the concrete mix. The mask fiber is 0.2% of the volume of the specimen, and the superplasticizer is 0.25% of the cement used as an additive in the concrete mixture. The specimen is 50 cm long, 10 cm wide, and 10 cm high. There are two types of specimens, namely pre-corrosion and post-corrosion. In pre-corrosion specimens, corrosion acceleration of the reinforcement is carried out before the concrete molding process. While the post-corrosion specimen is being prepared, corrosion acceleration is carried out after the concrete is 28 days old. Corrosion acceleration is carried out by immersing the concrete specimen in a 5% NaCl solution and using a DC power supply. After the concrete is corroded, NDT is carried out. The NDT methods used are resistivity and impact-echo as analysis and detection tools for the effect of corrosion on palm shell concrete and mask fiber. The pre-corrosion specimen got the highest resistivity value on the 0% specimen at 21.35 kΩ.cm and the lowest resistivity on the 5% specimen at 16.70 kΩ.cm. The resistivity value decreases with increasing corrosion levels. The post-corrosion concrete has the highest resistivity on the 0% specimen, with 18.56 kΩ.cm, and the lowest resistivity on the 5% specimen, with 13.88 kΩ.cm. The resistivity value decreases with increased corrosion levels. The impact-echo testing on the pre-corrosion specimen yielded a 0% specimen with a value of 14394.53 Hz and a 1% specimen of 18266.6 Hz. The frequency value decreases with increasing corrosion levels. The result of impact-echo testing on post-corrosion concrete was 14394.53 Hz for the 0% specimen and 1567.38 Hz for the 5% specimen. The frequency value decreases with increasing corrosion levels.

Effect of Elevated temperatures on Tenera Oil Palm Shell Concrete on Compressive Strength and Weight Loss

Many studies have been conducted on the use of Dura type oil palm shells (OPS) as a replacement for the conventional aggregates in concrete. However, insufficient studies have been done on a new hybrid type called Tenera OPS by utilising it as a coarse aggregate in concrete. Likewise, just one study has been done on the effect of elevated temperatures on oil palm shell concrete (OPSC) made with Dura OPS. The study of elevated temperatures on concrete is vital to further understand its mechanical strength capability when a structure undergoes a fire incident for a certain amount of time for safety considerations. This study focuses on the compressive strength and weight reduction effects of Tenera OPS-concrete (Tenera-OPSC) when exposed to elevated temperatures at 150, 250, and 350 ºC. In addition, colour change, crack patterns and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) analysis was also evaluated when concrete samples were exposed to elevated temperatures in this study. The results indicate high strength reduction of Tenera-OPSC compared to NWC when exposed to elevated temperatures with a decrease of 50% at 350 ºC. A weight reduction of 43% was observed in the Tenera-OPSC type compared to NWC at 350 ºC. Further recommendations have been made for future studies.

Strength Properties and Toughness Indices of Hybrid Polymeric Fibre Reinforced Renewable Oil Palm Shell Concrete

In this study, the strength properties and durability of polymeric fibre-reinforced concrete containing renewable oil palm shell (ROPS) lightweight aggregate were investigated. The effect of individual Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) fibre, individual Polypropylene (PP) fibre and hybrid PVA-PP fibre with various percentage of volume fraction, Vf (0, 0.3 and ‘0.25+0.05’%) on the compressive strength and toughness indices of ROPS LWC were examined. The research outcomes show that compressive strength of ROPS lightweight concrete strengthened with individual PVA fibre or PP fibre enhanced with the increase of Vf fibre. From the results, toughness indices increased significantly by 38.3% compared to control mix. Furthermore, the hybrid ‘PVA0.25/PP0.05’ had revealed the optimum results as associated to other mixes. Thus, the outcomes of this paper showed that the blend of both PVA and PP polymeric fibre could potentially be utilized in concrete industry.

Effects of pre-treated on dura shell and tenera shell for high strength lightweight concrete

The utilization of bio-based renewable lightweight aggregates with pre-treated coating methods, using a grout binder derivative of water/cement (w/c: 1.25), is a recent development meant to enhance the performance of high strength and lightweight concrete. It aims to promote the long-term sustainability in the field of concrete technology. In this experimental analysis, coated tenera shells (CTS) and coated dura shells (CDS) acted as a replacement for tenera shells (TS) and dura shells (DS), respectively. It has previously been investigated in terms of its physical strength and associated material properties, as a lightweight bio-based aggregate concrete (LWBAC). The results revealed that through the substitution of raw TS and DS aggregates with that of CTS and CDS, the density of the samples which fell within the range of high strength lightweight concrete (HSLWC), slightly increased. As a result, the workability of the oil palm shell concrete (OPSC) showed a significant improvement by almost 41% with the use of the pre-treated OPS aggregates, as compared to the non-treated OPSC. The strength of the HSLWCs with the CDS mixture achieved the highest compressive strength and modulus of elasticity at 28-days, which were recorded at 52 MPa and 17.1 GPa, respectively. The ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) was also assessed, and the outcome revealed that a good condition was attained after 7 days. Therefore, pre-treated CDS and CTS has proven to be a highly recommended, eco-friendly aggregate, which serves as an alternative solution to improve the properties of OPS aggregates, and substantially enhance the performance of the LWBAC.

Post-peak Behaviour of Composite Column Using a Ductile Lightweight Aggregate Concrete

Oil palm shell (OPS) concrete filled steel tube (CFT) columns are acknowledged to be a new type of sustainable composite column. In this type of column, the conventional coarse aggregate was partially replaced with OPS lightweight aggregate to provide a green composite column. This type of CFT column showed higher energy absorption and flexibility compared to CFT columns with normal weight concrete. This research studied the effect of the strength of OPS concrete on the axial compressive behaviour of CFT columns for two grades of OPS concretes. The behaviour was comparable to that of CFT columns with two grades of normal concrete. The results showed that the CFT columns with OPS concrete achieved a new post-peak behaviour. The experimental results of the axial compressive load were compared with the estimation of two international standards. EC4-1994 and ACI318-14 showed a reliable and conservative estimation of the axial load capacity of CFT columns, respectively.

Durability of Lightweight Concrete Using Oil Palm Shell as Aggregates

Oil Palm Shell (OPS) concrete can be used in different fields of construction. To determine more accurately the fields of application, it is important to know and understand the behaviour of OPS concrete over the long term and when it is in aggressive environments. This paper presents the results of studies conducted on the durability of OPS concrete. Water absorption capacity, electrical resistivity and apparent diffusion of chloride ions have been measured on different concrete samples. In addition, the behaviour of OPS concretes to carbonation was studied in an environment rich in carbon dioxide. Results show that OPS concrete has an absorptivity of 0.97 kg/m2·h1/2, an electrical resistivity of 64.37 Ω·m and an apparent diffusion coefficient of chloride ions of 3.84 × 10-12 m2/s after 90 days. All these results of OPS concrete are very close to those of concrete with normal aggregate and other lightweight concrete, which mean OPS concretes have globally good properties with regard to durability.

Mechanical and durability properties of treated oil palm shell lightweight concrete

In this research study treated oil palm shells are used as coarse aggregate in producing lightweight concrete to examine the behavior of bond and durability properties. Oil palm shells having high absorption capacity, these are treated with silica-hydrogen compound admixture to minimize the absorption rate. These treated oil palm shells are used in making lightweight concrete. Prepared treated oil palm shell lightweight concrete is examined with non-treated oil palm shell lightweight concrete to examine the mechanical and durability behavior. Bond between the reinforcement and binder is examined by pull out test and the results are compared with non-treated oil palm shell concrete. Durability like permeability, sulphate attack is examined and compared. Laboratory experimental shows the use of treated oil palm shell for making lightweight concrete had better results than the non-treated oil palm shell concrete.

Load-Displacement Response of Oil Palm Shell Concrete Compressive Test Using Digital Image Correlation

Study of compressive strength of oil palm shell (OPS) concrete has been conducted by varying the content of admixture of silica fume and fly ash to increase concrete strength. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) was used as a tool to capture the physical change of concrete cube during the test which can be converted to load-displacement response by using open source sotware, Ncorr. It is evident that DIC can be carried out with ordinary camera DSLR which reveal from test result. Poison’s ratio as a ratio between lateral and vertical displacement is succesly obtained. The value are between 0.2096 to 0.2264. Concrete strength improved by 30% to 43% by adding the admixture, silica fume and fly ash.

The effectiveness of oil palm shell (OPS) as major aggregate replacement in concrete

Malaysia known as one of global leaders in production and export of palm oil. This huge production of palm oil has produced high waste product which might cause to environmental pollution. The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of oil palm shell (OPS) as aggregate replacement in concrete and at the same time help to reduce the environmental pollution. The workability, density, and strength performances of concrete incorporated with 80% of OPS as coarse aggregate replacement were being investigated. Through the experimental test has shown that the OPS have high potential to be used as aggregate replacement in concrete. Furthermore, the experimental test results exhibited the advantage of OPS in reducing the density of concrete within 1800kg/m3 to 2000 kg/m3. However, the compressive strength of concrete containing OPS was decreased up to 35% from normal concrete strength. Thus, by introducing steel fibres into the OPS concrete has help in improving the concrete strength. Hence the additional of steel fibre into concrete has shown good potential in improving the lightweight concrete since it shows lower in density and 35% higher than minimum lightweight concrete strength as stated by ASTM C330-89.

Predicting uniaxial compressive strength of oil palm shell concrete using a hybrid artificial intelligence model

The replacement of natural coarse aggregate (NCA) by oil palm shell (OPS) in concrete mixture offers various advantages such as conservation of natural resources, reduction of CO2 emission, and cost saving. However, mechanical properties of OPS concrete are different from natural aggregate concrete (NAC) due to inferior properties of OPS compared with NCA. Therefore, accurate evaluation of uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of OPS concrete is of vital importance before construction. To this end, a hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) model based on random forest (RF) was proposed to predict UCS of OPS concrete. The hyperparameters of RF were tuned using beetle antennae search (BAS) algorithm modified by Levy flight and self-adaptive inertia weight. The RF model was trained on a dataset collected from published literature. The obtained AI model has high prediction accuracy with correlation coefficient of 0.9588 on the test set. The proposed method is powerful and efficient in prediction of UCS of OPS concrete and therefore paves the way to intelligent construction.