STRENGTH AND DURABILITY PROPERTIES OF CONCRETE WITH WASTE FOUNDRY SAND AS A PARTIAL SUBSTITUTE TO FINE AGGREGATE AND BANANA FIBER

Abstract

Concrete is the broadly utilized building material due to its increasing demand in construction industry. Reducing natural sand sources and the need to reduce the cost of concrete production has led to an increased need to identify substitute material to sand as fine aggregates in concrete production. The efforts has been carried out to minimize and optimum utilization of natural sand in concrete with the use of waste foundry sand (WFS) as a substitute to fine aggregate and to study its effect on strength and durability properties.. WFS was used in different replacement level of fine aggregate ranging from 0 to 60% with increment of 20% by weight. To study the influence of fiber in concrete, banana fibers were used in different percentages in weight fractions (0%, 2.5%, 5% and 7.5%) specimens such as cubes, cylinders and prisms were cast with an optimum waste foundry sand percentage of 60%. Tests were performed for strength properties viz. compressive strength, split tensile strength, flexural strength and durability characteristics such as sorptivity and resistance to acids (HCL and H2SO4). It was assessed from the results that, addition of foundry sand and banana fibers enhanced the strength and durability properties when compared with the control concrete mixes at all curing periods.