Introduction

Concrete industry is considered as the largest construction industry in Palestine and in

the world. In Palestine, construction industry started to develop rapidly in the past fifteen
years after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Concrete industry in Palestine
lacks the independence in obtaining some of the materials needed. Cement is being
imported mainly from Israel; fine aggregate from natural sources is being imported from
Israel as well. Depending on importing these mainly needed materials made the concrete
industry under the sympathy of the Israeli's. Sometimes you find no concrete due to no
.cement or sand, other times you find bad concrete due to bad sand
Individual attempts have been made by local concrete ready-mixed concrete plants in
.order to overcome the sand problem
In the proposed project, only sand from crushed aggregates will be investigated. The idea
is to reach at a solid conclusion on what kind of crushed fine aggregate can be used and
.in what scale
Literature Review:
In general, it is known that using materials from natural sources is much cheaper than
using manufactured materials. Natural sand, when available, is much cheaper than using
crushed fine aggregates unless the crushed aggregate is a by-product that becomes
.available regardless it is going to be used or not
Several technical articles in the literature have investigated the comparison between the
two types of fine aggregate. In the following lines, some of the important articles that
:dealt with this issue
1. ACI Bulletin E1-07 (Aggregates for Concrete):
2. Effects of Various Fineness Moduli of Fine Aggregate on the Engineering Properties
of High-Performance Concrete, Ta-Peng Chang, et al., Journal of the Chinese Institute of
Engineers, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp289-300 (2001).
3. ASTM C33-01, Standard Specifications for Concrete Aggregates
4. Crushed Fine Aggregate, Inevitable Reality for Construction…..
5. Correlation Between Materials Finer than No. 200 Seive and Sand Equivalent Tests for
Natural and Crushed Stone Sands, Cement, Concrete and Aggregates, CCAGDP, Vol.
20,No. 2, Dec. 1998.
6. BS 882:1992, Specifications for Aggregates from Natural Sources for Concrete.
7. BS 1199 and 1200:1976, Specifications for Building Sands from Natural Sources.

:Procedure of Work
The project will be composed of obtaining crushed fine aggregates from the available
crushing plants in the West Bank which produce the fine aggregate. The obtained
:aggregate will be tested in the laboratory for the following properties
 Specific gravity and absorption
 Organic Impurities in Fine Aggregates
 The Effect of Organic Impurities on Compressive Strength
 Potential Volume Change of Cement-aggregate Combinations
 Soundness
 Clay Lumps
 Sand Equivalent
 Sieve Analysis
 Flakiness & elongation
 Freezing & thawing effect
 Aggregate Durability Index
 Petrographic examinations of aggregates for concrete

After knowing the properties, the results should be able to nominate some of the tested
materials to be further investigated and used partially or fully to replace natural sand.
Comparison mixes from natural sand and crushed sand will be investigated as well.

The following tests are to be carried out on the trial mixes samples
 compressive strength
 permeability
 potential for Alkali-carbonate reactivity of cement-aggregate combinations
 potential for Alkali-silica reactivity of combinations of aggregates and cementitious
materials
 Chloride ion penetration

Working Team:
:The following working team will consist of the following
1. Team leader with qualifications and knowledge of the subject preferably from the
Palestinian Standards Institution (PSI).
2. One civil/material engineer to monitor and design the lab tests, investigate the results
and coordinate with the team leader. Preferably a person with background about the
subject.
3. Two technicians for field sampling, sample preparation in the lab and testing.

Place of Research:
It is suggested that the research takes place either in one of the PSI labs (if any),
University labs or private sector labs.

Project Management:

1. Financial management: the financial management of the project is to be in

coordination between the team leader and the PSI.
2. General management: The team leader will prepare monthly progress reports
about the work been done and submit them to the people in charge in PSI.
3. Occasional meetings will be held to update the interested people about the
preliminary results been reached at.

Social & Economic Impact:

The project, based on the results of the research, is supposed to give a clear answer for
the question raised about the possibility of using the crushed fine aggregates as a
substitute partially or fully for the imported natural sand in the concrete industry. In
general, approximate value of imported annual natural sand is about 40 $ millions.
Any reduction in this amount will go towards the support of the local crushing plants
in different forms, and probably will reduce the concrete price for the consumers
accordingly.

Budget Estimation:

1. approximately 100 trial mixes @ 300$ = 30000$

 2. part time team leader 2000$/month for 9 months = 18000$
3. civil /material engineer 1000$/month for 9 months = 9000$
4. 2 lab technicians 750$ each/month for 9 months = 13500$
5. transportation and managerial support =12000$

Total budget = 82500$

N.B.
This amount is based on the assumption that no equipment is needed for purchase. If any
equipment or apparatus is needed, then the cost will be added to the budget.