A Study on Recycled Aggregate Concrete Using Ecosand as Fine Aggregate

There is an increasing requirement for the production of concrete globally, due to rapid infrastructure development, leading to shortage in the availability of raw materials, which in turn increase its costs. At the same time, many waste materials are also produced as by-products from various industries and construction sites, the disposal of which cause a major problem. Thus it becomes necessary to find an alternate source of raw material for infrastructure development and a proper method of utilization of waste materials from industries and demolished buildings. Natural aggregates are becoming increasingly scarce and their production and shipping is more difficult. Recycled aggregate is an aggregate collected from the waste concrete from the demolition of old buildings and Ecosand is a commercial byproduct of cement manufacturing process introduced by ACC cements Ltd. Recycled aggregate can be used in the construction industry as coarse aggregate in concrete by replacing natural aggregate. Ecosand can be used as fine aggregate replacement in concrete but extensive study has to be made on its behavior. Replacing all or some portion of natural aggregates with recycled aggregate and ecosand would lead to considerable environmental benefits. Hence, in this study an attempt has been made to use recycled aggregate as coarse aggregate replacement and ecosand as fine aggregate replacement. The combination of normal sand and ecosand was done in various ratios. From that optimization of ecosand was done.