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Osagie Ibhadode
Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI)
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Abstract:
Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. These materials are
often used in residential driveways, paving and curb, walls, house foundations and gutter
applications. Sustainable concrete structures are beneficial as it consumed less energy, release less
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and cost less to build and to maintain over the given period
of time. Solid waste management is one of the major environmental concerns in the country today.
This paper investigates the utilization of waste plastics as replacement for fine aggregates in
concrete for the production of lightweight concrete. The aim of the research is to evaluate the
effect of addition of granulated waste plastics on the compressive strength and density of concrete.
Portland cement was mixed with the aggregates to produce the concrete composites. Grade 20
concrete design strength of mix ratio 1: 2.3: 3.5 and 0.65 w/c ratio was used for the experiment.
Five weight fractions 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 30% of granular plastic waste were used to
replace the fine aggregate in the batching. The concrete mixture was tested for slump; cast into
moulds of 150 mm by 150 mm by 150 mm sizes; cured for 3, 7, 14, and 28 days respectively. The
compressive strength and density of the concrete specimens were determined. The results revealed
slump and compressive strength of concrete decreased with increase in the percentage
replacement of plastic. The findings also revealed decrease in the unit weight (density) of concrete
with increase in the percentage replacement of plastic waste. It can be deduce from this research
that, waste plastics are not good materials that can be used to improve compressive strength
development in concrete matrix but they can be used in the production of lightweight concrete in
construction.
Keywords__ Waste plastic, Portland cement, Compressive strength, Lightweight concrete.
once plastic is discarded after its utility is
over, it is known as plastic waste.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
These wastes (plastic) are almost non-
Waste is now a global problem, and one that degradable in the natural environment even
must be addressed in order to solve the after a long period of exposure. So, plastic
world's resource and energy challenges. waste is now a serious environmental threat to
Plastics are made from limited resources such the modern way of living. It is not feasible to
as petroleum, and huge advances are being use waste plastic for land filling, which
made in the development of technologies to require huge land space area and as well land
recycle plastic waste among other resources. loses its fertility. It also causes serious
It was reported in Dhaka City Corporation problems such as clogging in drainage
(DCC) area that plastic waste generation system, wastage of resources and
increases at the rate of 10.43% per year in the environmental pollution. In this consequence,
amount of plastic waste, (Rahman, M., et’al. big attention is being focused worldwide on
2012). However, with increasing population the environment and safeguarding the natural
in Nigeria, the amount and type of waste resources through recycling of waste plastic
materials produced tends to increase in that materials in the recent years. It may appear to
same proportion. In terms of plastic waste, be valuable property as construction material.
Polymer aggregate is significantly lighter than
ISSN: 2455-1341 http://www.ijretjournal.org Page 44
International Journal of Research in Engineering Technology -– Volume 2 Issue 5, Sep - Oct 2017
natural aggregate and therefore its compressive strength concrete showed a sharp
incorporation lowers the densities of the reduction up to 72% of the original strength
resulting concrete. This property can be used of the concrete. With 5% replacement the
to develop lightweight concrete [Youcef, G. compressive strength showed a 23%
et’al. 2009]. Thus, utilization of waste plastic reduction. (Bhupendra S. S. and Vanita A.,
materials in concrete as aggregates may be (2014), investigated on the use of plastic
considered one of the most feasible utilization materials and glass powder in a number of
to overcome some safe disposal problems of civil engineering applications.
waste plastic materials. 1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
A number of researchers (Al-Manaseer, A.A., Solid waste management is the most pressing
and Dalal, T.R., 1997,; Gongming Zhou, et’al environmental challenge faced by urban and
2007.; Parviz S. et’al. 1993.; Malek B., et’al., rural areas of Nigeria. Nigeria, with
2006.; Bandodkar, L. R. et’al. 2011) have population exceeding 170 million, is one of
proposed on how to utilize the waste the largest producers of solid waste in Africa.
materials produced. Mechanical recycling (Bioenergy consult 2016). There is rapid
methods to make plastic products and growth in the Nigerian population and the
feedstock recycling methods that use plastic increase in population comes with increase in
as a raw material in the chemical industry waste generation. Nigeria generates around 32
have been widely adopted, and awareness has million tons of solid waste annually, out of
also grown recently of the importance of which only 20-30% is collected (Bioenergy
Thermal recycling as a means of using consult 2016). The waste are disposed in open
plastics as an energy source to conserve spaces, road sides and within residential
petroleum resources. However, one of the buildings. Sorting plastic waste and using it in
main goals of sustainable solid waste construction will reduce waste accumulation
management is to maximize the ability of its to a great extent. There are construction
recycling and reusing waste materials. With stages that does not require normal concrete
increasing environmental pressure to reduce or heavy load and alternatively lightweight
waste pollution, the concrete industry has can be used on the building or structure.
started adopting a number of methods to The continues rise in solid plastics waste and
achieve these goals (Sear, 2005). cost of building materials over the years in
Nigeria and the world at large, forced
The self-weight of concrete which is researchers to look for ways of addressing the
associated with size of the structural members problem. Plastics waste which is one of the
can be reduced by the use of lightweight non-bio-gradable materials as stated earlier
materials. Development of concrete with non- causes a lot of environmental pollution, and
conventional aggregate such as polystyrene there is the need to find solution to such
foam wastes, High Density Polyethylene menace. It was reported that recycling of
(HDPE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste materials can be economical and as a
and other plastic has been used in concrete to consequence reduces pollution and
improve the properties of the concrete and contamination (Dhir and Csetenyi, 2003).
reduce cost (Pramod S. P. 2014; Raghatate, The problem with cement concrete are in
A.M., 2012.; Siddique, R. et’al. 2008). It was terms of low tensile strength, permeability to
reported by Mohammed Mustapha and Al liquids, corrosion of reinforcement, prone to
Bakri, 2010 that using these plastic wastes in biological or chemical attack, poor
concrete will lead to sustaining the concrete freeze/thaw resistances. Research and
design and greener the environments. Development has a new dimension in the use
Batayneh et al. (2007) demonstrated in their of affordable local building materials in
study that replacement of the plastic particles addressing the concrete drawbacks, such as
to concrete led to a reduction in the strength the use of waste plastics and other admixtures
properties of the concrete. For a 20% for improving the performance of concretes.
replacement of plastic particles, the Research has been carried out in advanced
ISSN: 2455-1341 http://www.ijretjournal.org Page 45
International Journal of Research in Engineering Technology -– Volume 2 Issue 5, Sep - Oct 2017
3.1.2 Aggregates
The fine aggregate used in this experiment is
the sharp sand locally obtained from a river.
The properties of the sand are presented in
Table 3. The gradation of the fine aggregate
was in accordance with BS 812 part 1 (1975)
specification as shown in Table 4.
The coarse aggregate used was well graded
naturally occurring crushed stone of 20 mm
maximum size and bulk density of 1545
kg/m3. 3.1.3 Waste plastic
The waste plastics used for this study are
Table 3: properties of fine aggregate thermoplastic of low density polyethylene
(LDPE) plastics, obtained from domestic,
commercial and industrial wastes sites. The
waste plastics are shredded into smaller sizes
of 5 mm by mechanical means. The
physical and mechanical properties of the
waste granular plastic presented in Table 5.
The sample of waste plastic material obtained
from dump site in Kaduna – Nigeria and the
Granulated Waste Plastic aggregates is shown
in Figure 1.
3.2 METHOD
3.2.1 Mix Proportion
The mix used in this work had a total cement
content of 323 kg/m3, fine aggregate content
of 747 kg/m3, coarse aggregate of 1867 kg/m3
and a water content of 190 kg/m3. Granulated
plastic waste aggregate replacement levels
were 0%, 5 %, 10 %, 15%, 20 %, and 30 %,
by weight of fine aggregate. The concrete was
tested in the fresh and hardened conditions.
Table 6 shows the workability of granulated
waste plastic-concrete mixes.
Table 6: Slump for control concrete and
granulated plastic waste replacements
mixes
Figure 2: Samples of the dried specimens at
10% replacement Source: Author 2017