Cockle Shell: a Potential Partial Coarse Aggregate Replacement in Concrete

Effort towards preserving natural coarse aggregate for future generation and reducing cockle shell waste originating from the fisheries industry has initiated studies on possibility of integrating this waste in concrete production. This paper presents the result on the workability and compressive strength of concrete containing various percentage of cockle shell content as partial coarse aggregate replacement. Concrete mixes containing 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30% cockle shell replacement level were cast before subjected to water curing for 28 days. Workability test and compressive strength test were conducted in accordance to BSEN 12350 and BSEN 12390 respectively. Results show that replacement of appropriate cockle shell content able to produce workable concrete with satisfactory strength. Integration of 20% cockle shell enhanced the strength of concrete making it to be the highest as compared to any other replacement level.