Strength Performance of Recycled Coarse Aggregates in Marine Environment

Now a days recycling of demolition concrete is beneficial and necessary from the viewpoint of environmental preservation and effective utilization of resources. In order to realize this, it is necessary to use demolition concrete as recycled aggregate for fresh concrete. To make it work, considerable amount of research has been conducted. Although some mechanical properties of recycled concrete may be generally lower than those of normal concrete, they are still sufficient for practical application in constructions. The use of Recycle Aggregate Concrete (RAC) in construction industry is advantageous and economical. The waste from construction and demolition work is of large volume and increasing with time. However, all these researches were mainly focusing on the properties of RAC in normal condition and rare was reported about properties of RAC with seawater corrosion, which prohibits a wider application of recycled concrete in the practical design of marine engineering structures. As mankind is stepping forward to explore the ocean, huge demands of construction materials are in need to execute the projects. The study presents the results of strength tests (compressive, split tensile and flexural strengths) conducted on Natural coarse aggregate concrete and Recycled coarse aggregate concrete of M40 grade for Normal water curing. The results of study conducted on concrete specimens subjected to sea water curing are also presented. It is concluded that up to 40% of replacement of recycled coarse aggregate can be safe and gave similar results to compare with natural aggregates in normal water curing and sea water curing.