Concrete made from ceramic industry waste: Durability properties

Concrete which contains waste products as aggregate is called ‘Green’ concrete. Use of hazardous waste in concrete-making will lead to green environment and sustainable concrete technology and so such concrete can also be called as ‘Green’ concrete. Concrete made with ceramic electrical insulator waste as coarse aggregate shows good workability, compressive, tensile and flexural strengths and modulus of elasticity. Further, study of its durability will ensure greater reliability in its usage. Permeation characters are used widely to quantify durability properties of concrete. This paper presents an experimental investigation on the permeation characteristics [volume of voids and water absorption (ASTM C642-06), chloride penetration (ASTM C1202-10), and sorption] of concrete with ceramic electrical insulator waste coarse aggregate (hereafter it is called recycled aggregate concrete) of six different water–cement ratios in comparison with those of corresponding conventional concrete mixes. From the results it has been observed that there is no significant change in the basic trend of permeation characteristics of this recycled aggregate concrete when compared to the conventional concrete. This recycled aggregate concrete possesses higher permeation characteristic values than those of conventional concrete. These values decrease with decrease in water–cement ratio for both the recycled aggregate concrete and the conventional concrete.