Republic of the Philippines Central Luzon State University Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija
EVALUATION OF PLASTIC AGGREGATES USED AS HOLLOW BLOCKS
By: ALQUINN B. TABLANG BSCE 5-2
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirementsin requirementsin CENGR 522 (SPECIAL PROBLEM) College of Engineering
Supervised by: ENGR. PETER O GELILIO Instructor, Department of Civil Engineering, CLSU
PLASTIC AGGREGATES IN CHB (CONCRETE HOLLOW BLOCKS)
CHAPTER 1 I. INTRODUCTION Disposal of plastic waste in environment is considered to be a big problem due to its very low biodegradability and presence in large quantities. In recent time significant research is underway to study the possibility of disposal of these wastes in mass concrete where strength of concrete may not be major criteria under consideration, such as heavy mass of concreting in PCC in pavements. If plastic wastes can be mixed in the concrete mass in some form, without significant effect on its other properties or slight compromise in strength, we can consume large quantities of plastic waste by mixing it in the concrete mass. Plastic is one component of municipal solid waste (MSW) which is becoming a major research issue for its possible use in concrete especially in self-compacting concrete and light weight concrete. Although some of these materials can be beneficially incorporated in concrete, both as part of the cementitious binder phase or as aggregates, it is important to realize that not all waste materials are suitable for such use. One of the main environmental problem today is the disposal of the waste plastics. The use of plastics in various places as packing materials and the products such as bottles, polythene sheets, containers, packing strips etc., are increasing day by day. This results in production of plastic wastes from all sorts of livings from industrial manufacturers to domestic users. To circumvent this pollution crisis, many products are being produced from reusable waste plastics.
On the other side, the Indian construction industry is facing problems due to insufficient and unavailability of construction materials. So, we need to search for new construction materials as well as a method to dispose the plastic waste. To find a solution to the above problems, one of them can be used to solve the other. Disposal of used plastics by land filling may be temporary solution and also affects ground water recharging and soil microbe activities. Incineration of plastic material will cause air pollution, global warming and monsoon failure. Investigations done so far have shown that waste plastics can be utilized for making polymer aggregate blocks with ceramics and granite, which can be used in laying footpaths. The blocks can take 350 tonnes of load and prevents water penetration. They can also be used in lining of canals. A bitumen blend can be used as a coat over reinforced cardboard for roofing. Besides enhancing the strength and life of roofing, used by the poor, the blend will provide better moisture resistant. A blend of waste plastics with mastic components and flooring materials provides floors of more strength, especially in industrial units. Waste polymers also infuse greater strength when mixed with cement as a reinforced concrete. Concrete has proved to be an excellent disposal means for fly ash, silica fume, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), marble powder, and so forth which not only traps the hazardous material but also enhances the properties of concrete. Concrete, as a material, has significantly been benefited from the usage of fly ash, silica fumes, and GGBS. For a constant workability, the reduction in water demand of concrete due to fly ash is usually between 5 and 15% when compared with Portland cement only mix. The reduction is large at higher w/c ratio.
II. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY The Philippines concrete industry is today consuming about 400 million tonnes of concrete every year and it is expected, that this may reach a billion tonnes in less than a decade. All the materials required to produce such huge quantities of concrete, come from the earth’s crust, thus depleting its resources every year creating ecological strains. On the other hand, human activities on earth produce solid wastes in considerable quantities i.e., over 2500 million tonnes per year, including industrial wastes, agricultural wastes and other wastes from rural and urban societies. Disposal of such solid wastes involves economic issues as well as ecological and environmental considerations. The major ecological strain in disposal of solid waste ma y be due to the presence of waste plastics in it. The plastic is one of the recent engineering materials which have appeared in the market all over the world. Some varieties of naturally occurring thermoplastics were known to Egyptians and Romans who extracted and used these plastics for various purposes. Plastics were used in bath and sink units, corrugated and plain sheets, floor tiles, joint less flooring, paints and varnishes and wall tiles. Other than these, domestically plastics were used in various forms as carry bags, bottles, cans and also in various medical utilities. There has been a steep rise in the production of plastics from a mere 30 million kN in 1955, it has touched 1000 million kN at present. It is estimated that on an average 25% of the total plastic production in the world is used by the building industry. The per capita consumption of plastics in the developed countries ranges from 500 to 1000N while in our country, it is only about 2N. There is however now increase in awareness regarding the utilization of plastic as a useful building material in our country. These types of usages normally generates more amount of wastes which are to be disposed off properly.
Environmentally sensitive aware people condemn the use of plastics for amount of pollution caused by them in disposal. However this is not a serious problem in comparison to the waste and pollution generated by a host of other industries. The non-biodegradable p lastic products used for soft drink bottles, milk and juice bottles, bread bags, syrup bottles, coffee cups, plastics utensils etc., can be conveniently recycled into carpets, detergent bottle, drainage pipes, fencing, handrails, grocery bags, car battery cases, pen cil holders, benches, picnic tables, road side posts etc,. The developing construction field consumes a huge amount of concrete and it leads to the depletion of natural products and causes environmental pollution. Plastics are normally stable and not biodegradable. S o, their disposal poses problems. Research works are going on in making use of plastics wastes effectively as additives in bitumen mixes for the road pavements. Reengineered plastics are used for solving the solid waste management problems to great extent. This study attempts to give a contribution to the effective use of waste plastics in concrete in order to prevent the ecological and environmental strains caused by them, also to limit the high amount of environmental degradation. Four types of plastic materials were selected to mix along with the concrete: (1) Polythene Sheet (2) Raw Plastics (3) Road Wastes (4) Plastic Straw to study their behav ior in conjunction with concrete. The properties of the materials used in the present investigations were completely studied and the optimum mix of the above plastic materials was found based on their compressive, split tensile, flexural strengths. After finding the optimum mix percentages in compression, RC columns were cast and tested for its compressive strength. From the investigation, the road waste mixed concrete was found to take more loads in compression. Raw plastic mixed concrete as well as plastic straw mixed concrete were also found to give better strength than the reference RC column.
III.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
1. How to solve the problems in waste about plastics in the Philippines? 2. What material can make out of waste plastics? 3. Can plastic be an raw material in making construction material? 4. What can plastic bottles/PVC (ground) do to make a masonry material more durable? 5. Is this material economical and more durable than an ordinary CHB (Concrete Hollow Blocks)?
IV.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1. To determine the ways in solving about plastic waste problems in the Philippines. 2. To determine if plastics are suitable in making construction material. 3. To determine the characteristics of concrete with plastics additives. 4. To make a construction material such as CHB (Concrete Hollow Blocks) an economical and more durable material that are used in builbings.
V. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY This study is significant in a way that it can make the construction suppy help Philippines in solving problems in waste plastics, and prevent floods in the regions, cities and community that are highly producing of plasctics waste. This study can be a reflection to readers who have an insight of Civil Engineering as a construction theory and building only, but being an investigators and inventors also of material and also ecologist. Lastly, this study can be a basis for students looking for responses regarding the considerations of problems about their community, cities, regions and the whole country.
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE In recent years there has been an increased use of mixing the Portland cement and GGBS components directly in the concrete mixer. An advantage of this procedure is that the proportion of Portland cement and GGBS can be varied at will. The granulated slug can be ground to a 3
fineness of any desired value, but usually, greater than 350 m /kg. The presence of GGBS in the mix improves workability and makes the mix more mobile but cohesive. However, the workability of concrete containing GGBS is more sensitive to variations in the water content of the mix than is the case with Portland cement only concrete. Mixes containing GGBS are found to exhibit an early loss of slump. The presence of GGBS in the mix leads to retardation of 30 to 60 min at normal temperatures. Silica fume has a very high reactivity with calcium hydroxide, and this reactivity permits silica fume as a replacement for a small proportion of Portland cement. Marble powder has higher density and it is assumed that this would improve the segregation resistance of the self-compacting concrete. Corinaldesi et al. mentioned that high fineness of marble powder is proved to be very effective in assuming very good cohesiveness of mortar and concrete. They further showed that marble powder had a very high Blaine’s fineness 2
value of about 1.5 m /g with 90% of particles passing through 50 μm sieves and 50% under 7 μm. According to Gupta et al. the value of segregation index increases with the increase in the amount of marble powder as a replacement of fly ash. Binici et al. found that marble dust concrete had higher compressive strength than that of the corresponding lime stone dust and control concrete with equivalent w/c and mix proportion. Batayneh et al. found that glass containing concrete composites was the most consistent composite than fiberglass within the selected range of 5 and 20% aggregate substitutes. Rebeiz investigated the strength properties of
