Australian Journal of Civil Engineering

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Using silica mineral waste as aggregate in a green

high strength concrete: workability, strength,
failure mode, and morphology assessment

Palanisamy Murthi, Paul Awoyera, Palanisamy Selvaraj, Devi Dharsana &

Ravindran Gobinath

To cite this article: Palanisamy Murthi, Paul Awoyera, Palanisamy Selvaraj, Devi Dharsana &
Ravindran Gobinath (2018): Using silica mineral waste as aggregate in a green high strength
concrete: workability, strength, failure mode, and morphology assessment, Australian Journal of
Civil Engineering, DOI: 10.1080/14488353.2018.1472539

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14488353.2018.1472539

Published online: 20 Jun 2018.

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AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
https://doi.org/10.1080/14488353.2018.1472539

ARTICLE

Using silica mineral waste as aggregate in a green high strength concrete:

workability, strength, failure mode, and morphology assessment
Palanisamy Murthia, Paul Awoyera b
, Palanisamy Selvarajc, Devi Dharsanad and Ravindran Gobinathd
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Srishakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu, India; bDepartment of Civil
Engineering, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria; cDepartment of Civil Engineering, KPR Institute of Engineering and Technology, Tamil
Nadu, India; dDepartment of Civil Engineering, Jay Shri Ram Group of Institutions, Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Environmental degradation is a major challenge in the developing countries, which are Received 21 November 2017
caused due to unmanaged solid waste, or improper disposal. This study investigates the Accepted 30 April 2018
effect of using silica mineral waste (eco sand) as aggregate in a green high strength concrete, KEYWORDS
in which properties such as workability, strength, failure mode, and morphology were Eco sand; higher strength
determined. There was low slump and compacting factor in all the concrete mixtures, concrete; aggregate;
however, strength properties were improved with the incorporation of eco sand as a morphology; hydration
replacement of conventional fine aggregate. Higher strength properties were achieved in
the eco sand concrete than the reference mixtures, which occurred at an optimum eco sand
content of 25%. The morphology and failure mode of the eco sand concrete showed that
there was a significant compactness and constituents parking in the matrix.

1. Introduction sustainability measures that is put in place in the con-

struction field.
Rapid growth in world population and urbanization,
Eco sand, a finely graded silica particle, is usually
have notable consequence on the quantity of the natural
found as a by-product from the cement production
fine and coarse aggregates consumed during construc-
industries which uses raw silica during production.
tion, and this is a major concern to stakeholders in the
This material is currently receiving attention by
built environment. The natural aggregate sources are
researchers, owing to its abundance, as it is being
being overly explored, and as a result there is depletion
explored for possible inclusion as concrete ingredient.
in the material sources. But at the same time, there can be
In recent years, eco sand is being explored for pro-
an adverse effect of depletion of natural sources on bio-
duction of building blocks, wall plastering, concrete
diversity or it may influence natural disaster
manholes, paved blocks, ready mix and pre-cast con-
(Sathanandam et al. 2017; Awoyera, Akinmusuru, and
crete (Dharshna Devi, Venkatasubramani, and
Ndambuki 2016).
Elangovan 2016) (Chinnaraju et al. 2013). Both
The only option remains in the use of alternative
strength properties of concrete containing eco sand
aggregates and binders for concrete and mortar produc-
was enhanced, thus producing similar strength as
tion. Numerous materials, sourced from natural materi-
conventional concrete.
als and industrial solid wastes have been explored as
However, despite the number of completed studies
potential materials to replace the conventional aggregates
that utilized eco sand as concrete ingredient, there is
(Babalola and Awoyera 2016; Iqbal et al. 2017; Ali et al.
still need for more researches regarding the use of this
2017; Dash, Patro, and Rath 2016; Palankar, Ravi
material for making high strength concrete, in order to
Shankar, and Mithun 2015; Awoyera et al., 2015). Based
establish the performance and suitability of the concrete.
on their research findings, materials such as copper slag,
Therefore, the present study evaluates high strength eco-
imperial smelting furnace slag, class F fly ash (classified
friendly concrete containing eco sand as fine aggregate
based on ASTM C 618) were found to improve strength
replacement, and the influence of eco-sand on morphol-
and durability characteristics of concrete. Similarly, nat-
ogy of concrete is also examined.
ural aggregates or binders have been substituted with
steel slag or silica fume, and bamboo has been used as a
reinforcing material in concrete (Karthik, Rao, and 2. Materials and methodology
Awoyera 2017). In most cases, the alternative materials
2.1. Raw materials
were found as producing similar performance as the
conventional materials when used in concrete produc- Eco sand was used in this study as partial replacement
tion. This kind of attribute gives a good direction to the for river sand in making high strength concrete. It is

CONTACT Paul Awoyera paul.awoyera@covenantuniversity.edu.ng Department of Civil Engineering, Covenant University, Ota 112233, Nigeria
© 2018 Engineers Australia
2 P. MURTHI ET AL.

mostly available in cement production plants where Table 2. Physical Properties of Coarse Aggregate.
silica is used as raw material. The ecosand was sourced Parameters River sand Eco sand Granite
from ACC Limited cement industry, located within Specific gravity 2.66 2.42 6.55
Fineness modulus 2.6 2.8 2.43
Madukkarai, Coimbatore South Sub-District, Tamil Water absorption (%) 6.5 2.1 2.5
Nadu, India. This company generates about 15,000 Aggregate impact value (%) - - 12.17
Aggregate crushing value (%) - - 31.20
tonnes of Eco Sand within a month, currently, it has
not been utilized for concreting. There is a large deposit
of eco sand at this cement production plant as shown in
Figure 1. Eco sand possesses high silica content, as can
be seen from its oxide composition presented in
Table 1. This phenomenon is an advantage for eco
sand to aid pozzolanic reactions in concrete.
Natural river sand and granite that were sourced
from a quarry in Tamil Nadu district, India, were
used as the primary aggregates. The portions of
river sand and eco sand aggregates used represent
that which passes the 4.75micron sieve aperture,
while the granite was of 20 mm maximum size. The
aggregates were air-dried in the laboratory for a per-
iod of 2 weeks in order to ensure natural moistures
were drained out of the aggregates. This procedure is
necessary so as to monitor concrete water content
and also to negate bleeding occurrence in the con-
crete. The physical properties of the aggregates were
determined following the recommendations of IS
2386 (Chinnaraju et al. 2013), the results are pre- Figure 2. Particle size distribution of river sand and eco sand.
sented in Table 2. In Figure 2, the particle size dis-
tribution of both river sand and eco sand are
properties of the cement as sourced from the manu-
presented. The eco sand particles are slightly finer
factural is presented in Table 3. Potable water was
than the river sand, this feature can ensure that eco
used for mixing the concrete constituents.
sand functions as a filler in the concrete matrix in
addition to being a substitute fine aggregate.
A grade 43 Ordinary Portland Cement (CEM1) 2.2. Mix design, samples preparation and testing
conforming to IS 12,269 (IS 2386, 2002) requirement
Table 4 shows the mix proportions of the mixtures
was used as binder, it was obtained from a retail
investigated in this study. The mix design approach
outlet within Tamil Nadu, India. The physical
follows the recommendation of IS 10,262 (IS 12,269,
1987). Although, Eco-sand does not only works as
fine aggregate replacement, but the superfine portion
of eco-sand can also be used as a secondary binder in
order to improve the strength characteristics of a
cementitious mixture.(IS 10,262, 2009)
The superfine portion of Eco sand (due to its fine-
ness) possess the ability to fill micropores, caused as a
result of slow hydration, and more over the pozzolanic
reaction can be triggered by its inclusion in a concrete
matrix. However, in this study Eco sand was used as
partial replacement of fine aggregate in the concrete
mixtures. It was mixed in various percentages as pre-
sented (Table 4). The workability characteristics of the

Figure 1. Eco sand deposit at Madukkarai, Coimbatore. Table 3. Physical Properties of Cement.
Parameters Values
Fineness 98%
Table 1. Oxide composition of eco sand. Initial Setting Time 18 min
Oxides SiO2 Al2O3 K2O CaO Fe2O3 Na2O MgO LOI Final Setting Time 7 hr: 45 min
Standard Consistency 33%
Amount % 68.1 10.7 4.3 2.2 1.7 0.6 0.5 11.5 Specific Gravity 3.15
 AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING 3

Table 4. Weight of Mix Ingredients. due to the low water-cement ratio used. These types of
Binder Fine aggregate Coarse aggregate concrete mixtures can be suitable for high strength con-
(kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3)
crete for road pavement construction.
Water/
Mix River Eco cement
ID Cement sand sand Granite ratio
Ref 444.44 614.4 - 992 0.47
EC5 444.44 583.68 30.72 992 0.47 3.1. Strength development in concrete mixtures
EC10 444.44 552.96 61.44 992 0.47
EC15 444.44 522.24 92.16 992 0.47 The compressive strength development with curing
EC20 444.44 491.52 122.88 992 0.47
EC25 444.44 460.8 153.6 992 0.47
age and eco sand content are shown in Figure 4(a,b)
EC30 444.44 430.08 184.32 992 0.47 respectively. Compressive strength increases with
increasing curing age for all the mixtures. In terms of
28 days strength, all the modified mixtures gained
concrete was determined using slump and compacting higher strength than the reference concrete. It is an
factor tests. Samples preparation includes 150 mm con- evidence that the strength developed in the other mix-
crete cubes, 150 × 300 mm concrete cylinders and tures was enhanced by the eco sand addition. This can
100 × 100 x 500 mm reinforced concrete prisms, they be possible in two different ways, it could be due to the
were used for determination of compressive strength, fact that eco sand also featured as a filler particle,
split-tensile strength, and flexural strength respectively which filled up micro pores in the concrete, or perhaps
(IS 516-1959, n.d.), after the samples have been cured in the hydration process was prolonged because of poz-
water for 28 days. Samples for compression and split zolanic effect by the eco sand (Awoyera et al. 2017).
tensile strength tests were made in triplicates, while two However, considering strength gained with eco sand
prisms were made per mixture. The averages of strength substitution into the concrete (Figure 4(b)), compres-
obtained were presented in this paper. sive strength initially increased with increasing eco sand
The prisms were reinforced using nominal high yield content up to 25%, before a sharp drop occurred in the
reinforcement of 12 mm diameter as main bars and 6 mm strength as the eco sand content was increased to 30%.
diameter as stirrups. Upon testing of the samples, the It was a similar attribute for both the concrete tested at 7
morphology of selected crumbs from the crushed con- and 28 days. SEM micrographs of 25% and 30% eco
crete was observed using a Scanning Electron Microscope sand concrete are presented in Figures 5 and 6, respec-
(SEM), which was operated in the secondary electron tively. The sharp reduction in strength may be because
mode. This mode is adapted for determination of mor- of addition of more content of eco sand, and its fine
phology of samples which are normally coated with fragments could reduce the calcium silicate hydrate (C-
carbon. S-H) gel developed during hydration of cement. When
this is the case, the interfacial transition (ITZ) density
will lessen and strength characteristic of concrete
3. Results and discussion
diminishes. This therefore suggests that the optimum
The workability result is presented in Figure 3. Although, eco sand content to be substituted for river sand is
higher slump and compacting factor were seen in the eco about 25% to develop a high strength concrete. A typical
sand concrete compare to the reference mixtures, but failure mode of eco sand concrete is shown in Figure 7.
generally the entire mixtures are categorized as having The pattern of failure is the concrete is similar to the
low slump. There was low slump in concrete mixtures conventional mix, when tested in compression.

Figure 3. Workability results (a) slump (b) compacting factor.

4 P. MURTHI ET AL.
Figure 4. Compressive strength developed with (a) curing age (b) eco sand conetnt.
Figure 5. SEM of 25% eco sand concrete.
Figure 6. SEM of 30% eco sand concrete.
A typical failure mode of eco sand concrete is
shown in Figure 8. The pattern of failure is the con-
crete is similar to the conventional mix, when tested
in tension. The split tensile strength developed with
Figure 7. Failure mode in a 25% eco sand concrete cube.
curing age is presented in Figure 9. The correlated
split-tensile versus compressive strength is shown in
Figure 10. The test was performed by placing the
cylindrical concrete specimen horizontally in the
compression testing machine, with flat metal plates
placed under and above the sample. The plates help
the load applied to be distributed uniformly through
the entire length of the concrete sample. The split
tensile strength increased with increasing curing age,
also the strength gained was higher than that of the
reference concrete. Again, as observed under com-
pression test, highest split tensile strength (3.58 N/
mm2) was obtained with 25% eco sand substitution
after curing the samples for 28 days. However, in a
related study, using refractory brick waste as supple-
mentary cementitious material in concrete, Zeghad
et al. (Zeghad et al. 2017) opined that tensile strength
development could be as a result of concrete age.
A typical failure mode of eco sand concrete is
shown in Figure 11. The pattern of failure is the
concrete is similar to the conventional mix, when
 AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING 5

Figure 11. Failure mode in a 25% eco sand concrete prism.

tested in flexure. The average flexural strength of the

prisms with the curing age is presented in Figure 12.
The prisms were subjected to flexural load under a
Figure 8. Failure mode in a 25% eco sand concrete third point loading arrangement. There was increase
cylinder.
in flexural strength with increasing curing age for all
the mixtures. Samples containing eco sand developed
higher flexural strengths than the reference concrete.
Adding eco sand as a concrete aggregate has no
negative impact on the strength characteristics of
concrete as indicated by the results. The best flexural
performance of the prism was seen at 25% eco sand
substitution, having a strength value of 7.47 N/mm2
compared to 5.1 N/mm2 of the reference concrete.

3.2. Microstructural characteristics

The morphology of the reference sample and the eco
sand concrete having the highest 28 days strength
characteristics was obtained using a Scanning
Electron Microscope (SEM). As shown in Figure 13
(a,b), the SEM imagery of the reference concrete is

Figure 9. Split tensile strength developed with curing age.

Figure 10. Split-tensile versus compressive strength. Figure 12. Flexural strength developed with curing age.
6 P. MURTHI ET AL.
Figure 13. Concrete mophology (a) reference mix (b) 25% eco sand concrete.
well compacted (Figure 13(a)). While a well refined
concrete structure can be seen in the eco sand con-
crete, only having a few un-hydrated eco sand parti-
cles (Figure 13(b)). The SEM micrographs evidently
support the strength characteristics of the concrete
mixture. Higher strength is expected in concrete
when there is minimal or no significant pores or
cracks in its matrix (Wang et al. 2015).
4. Conclusion
This study evaluates eco-friendly high strength con-
crete production using silica mineral waste as fine
aggregate replacement. The following conclusions
can be drawn from the study:
– The workability of the fresh concrete mixtures
was not altered by the incorporation of eco sand
into the concrete. The workability properties of
the modified concrete mixtures was within lim-
its of the reference mix.
– The strength properties of the concrete increased
with increasing curing age, which is a normal
phenomenon in concrete when it is undergoing
hydration. Compressive strength increased with
increasing eco sand content, however, a 25% eco
sand content was more suitable as a replacement
for river sand, and it was this mix which produced
the maximum strength at maturity.
– A well refined and compact morphology was seen
in the structure of a typical eco sand concrete.
This structure was developed owing to adequate
hydration process or possible pozzolanic reaction
by the eco sand particles in the concrete.
– The use of eco sand can reduce the amount of
fine aggregate content consumed during concrete
production, as well as heat of hydration in the
concrete matrix. By using eco sand at the opti-
mum level in concrete works, it would improve
strength properties than in the conventional con-
crete. This consequently meets the sustainability
conditions in the built environment and at the
same time saves the natural resources.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the management of Srishakthi
Institute of Engineering and Technology Tamil Nadu
641062, India, for supporting this research. Also, the anon-
ymous reviewers are well appreciated for comments made
towards improving this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
authors.
Notes on contributors
Palanisamy Murthi is a professor at the Department of
Civil Engineering, Srishakthi Institute of Engineering and
Technology Tamil Nadu 641062, India.
Paul Awoyera is a Lecturer and Researcher at the
Department of Civil Engineering, Covenant University,
Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Palanisamy Selvaraj is an assistant professor at the
Department of Civil Engineering, KPR Institute of
Engineering and Technology, Tamil Nadu, India.
Devi Dharsana is an Assistant Professor at the Department
of Civil Engineering, KPR Institute of Engineering and
Technology Tamil Nadu 641407, India.
Ravindran Gobinath is a Professor at the SR Engineering
College, Warangal, Telangana, India. He was formerly a
professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, Jay Shri
Ram Group of Institutions, Tamil Nadu 638660, India.
ORCID
Paul Awoyera http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6212-5090
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