Fresh and hardened characteristics of self compacting concretes made with combined use of marble powder, limestone filler, and fly ash

One of the major environmental concerns is disposal or recycling of the waste materials. Marble processing plants and limestone quarries produce millions of tons waste dust in the powder form every year. Having considerable high degree of fineness in comparison to cement, these materials may be utilized as filler for production of self compacting concretes (SCCs). For this purpose, an experimental program has been conducted to investigate the possibility of using marble powder (M) and limestone filler (LF) in the production of SCCs with and without fly ash. Two series of concrete mixtures containing binary and ternary blends of fine materials were designed and cast with a constant water–binder ratio of 0.35. Test results showed that high replacement level of the filler slightly affected the fresh properties of the SCCs adversely. However, the inclusion of fly ash mitigated such problems. Moreover, mechanical and transport properties were improved by using marble powder and limestone filler.