Mechanical Properties and High Temperature Performance of Sustainable Reactive Powder Concrete Containing Waste Glass

Abstract

At present, it is a challenge to produce a high performance reactive powder concrete (RPC) from local available materials due to the least costly components of a conventional concrete are eliminated by more expensive elements such as the silica fume and steel fibers. In the other hand, million tons of glass is being dumped every year all over the world. More than 75% of glass composition is basically silica and reported to having a pozzolanic reaction. Thus, glass is potentially suitable material as replacement materials for the RPC mixture.  In our work, waste glass powder (WGP) was used to completely replace silica fume. Compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and elastic modulus measurements were reported along with the density and colour of the RPC produced. The highlight of this study is on the assessment of the RPC at high temperature tested by direct burning at 600˚C. This had addressed to a very limited reported finding on the high temperature performance of RPC utilizing waste materials.  It was found that, RPC containing waste glass powder changes the colour of RPC from darkish grey to light grey. Adding waste glass powder had reduced the density of RPC by (0.05) gm/cm³. Using waste glass powder instead of silica fume had also improves the mechanical properties of RPC. However, there is no effect of adding waste glass powder in solving the spalling problem of RPC at high temperature up to 600˚C. This paper reports finding on the mechanical properties and high temperature performance of sustainable RPC that utilize waste glass powder in total replacement for the silica fume. This is carried out as an effort to address the high cost of the material used in the ordinary RPC and to enhance the recycling of local waste glass.