THE EFFECTS OF PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF FINE AGGREGATE WITH QUARRY DUST ON CONCRETE PROPERTIES

Abstract

Natural river sand is one of the important constituent materials in concrete production, while quarry dust is a material obtained from crusher plants. However, due to natural river sand scarcity and environmental degradation caused by excessive mining, there is a need to investigate an alternative material of the same quality that can replace river sand in concreteproduction. In the present study, experiments were carried out to study the gradation of aggregates, workability, and compressive strength of concrete made using quarry dust as a replacement for fine aggregate at 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%. A nominal mix ratio of 1:2:4 and a water-cement ratio of 0.55 were adopted for this work, and mix compositions were calculated by the absolute volume method. Workability and compressive strength were determined at different replacement levels of fine aggregate, and the optimum replacement level was determined based on compressive strength. Results showed that replacing 50% of fine aggregate with quarry dust gave a concrete with a maximum compressive strength of 25.10 N/mm2 on the 28th day of curing,when compared with all other replacement levels, including the control. Also, there was a significant decrease in workability as the percentage of quarry dust increased. From the overall result obtained, it was observed that the compressive strength of concrete is directly proportional to the cuing ages of the concrete specimens.