Experimental Analysis on the Characteristics of Concrete by Incorporating Steel Slag as Partial Replacement of Sand

Abstract

Steel slag is a by-product obtained in the manufacture of pig iron in the blast furnace and is produced by the blend of constituents of iron ore with limestone flux. Presently in India, owing to restricted methods of use, massive amounts of iron and steel slag are deposited in the yards of every production facility, occupying significant agricultural land, and seriously polluting the entire ecosystem. Meanwhile, the application of ecological environment protection has limited the mining of gravel, leading to a shortage of natural aggregate. Numerous studies have sought to replace natural aggregate in concrete with steel slag aggregate due to its good engineering qualities. The current research work is to investigate the concrete’s characteristics for M40-grade concrete by substitution of sand with steel slag at 10%, 20% and 30% during various curing ages. Several experiments were conducted on the characteristics of the concrete, compressive strength, and durability properties (such as water absorption and rapid chloride permeability test) up to the age of 90 days.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

In order to achieve sustainability and lower CO2 emissions, the building industry emphasises the use of alternative materials due to the rising urbanisation and excessive use of concrete. Cement, fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, and water are the typical ingredients of concrete. Between 60 and 80 percent of the volume and 70 to 85 percent of the mass of concrete are made up of aggregates. For concrete's strength, dimensional stability, and volume stability, aggregates play major role. These materials help to make concrete mixes more compact. River sand, which is one of the fine aggregate constituents used in the production of conventional concrete, the need of sand is more in growing countries to mitigate the fast infrastructure development. The increasing need for sand leads to a scarcity of high-quality sand, particularly in India where natural sand reserves are depleting, posing a serious threat to the environment. The rapid removal of sand from the bed of a stream causes a variety of problems, including the loss of soil layers that retain water and the riverbanks slipping (Sankh et al., 2014). Therefore, it must be crucial to discover a substitute for natural sand. According to a report by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), India generates over 62 million tons (MT) of waste in a year.  Only 43 MT of total waste generated gets collected, with 12 MT being treated before disposal, and the remaining 31 MT simply discarded in wasteyards. The Journal of Urban Management (December 2021) reports that the 62 MT of waste generated annually includes 7.9 MT are unwanted inorganic waste of mining & industrial division. The Indian Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) recently projected that annual waste generation in India will increase to 165 MT by 2030. To safeguard the environment, efforts are being made for using industrial waste in concrete for conserving natural resources and reduce the cost of construction materials. Assuming industrial by- product in the form of cementitious material and fine aggregate for concrete production can be considered one of the environmental benefits and shows better performance in concrete. Different types of industrial by-product currently used as industrial waste materials such as waste foundry sand, copper slag, fly ash, Steel slag, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS), metakaolin etc., these waste products pollute the environment and cause problems for landfills.

One possible mineral additive for sand replacement in concrete is steel slag, Steel slag is a by-product obtained in the manufacture of pig iron in the blast furnace and is produced by the blend of constituents of iron ore with limestone flux. Its common minerals consist of C3S, C2S, C12A7, C4AF, C2F, RO phase (Cao, FeO–MgO–MnO solid solution), Fe3O4, and free-CaO [1–3]. The minerals of C3S, C2S, C12A7, C4AF, and C2F exhibit cementitious performances when they are mixed with water. Steel slag produced in large quantity all over the world. India is the second largest steel producing country in the world and about 19 million tonnes of steel slag is generated in the country as a solid waste, which will increase to 60 million tonnes by the year 2030.

(About 200 kg of steel slag is generated in one tonne of steel production) [4]. The purpose of the current research is to investigate the durability (such as water absorption and rapid chloride permeability test) analysis of concrete for M40-grade concrete by substitution of sand with steel slag in different proportions at different curing ages. The tests are conducted, and the test results are compared with control samples without replacement. The steel slag processing system are shown in fig. 1 below.

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

A. Compressive strength

Table 5 shows the compressive strength of concrete at different percentage of steel slag. Compressive strength of control mixture of normal concrete without Steel slag is 50.21 MPa, 51.30 MPa and 52.85 MPa at 28, 56 and 90 days respectively. Compressive strength at 28 days of concrete mixtures made with 10%, 20% and 30% Steel slag as fine aggregates gained 4%, 11% and 19% respectively more compressive strength in comparison with Control mixture i.e., without Steel slag. At the age of 56 days, mixtures containing 10, 20 and 30% Steel slag as fine aggregates gained 5%, 11% and 19% respectively more compressive strength as compared to 56 days mixture without Steel slag. At the age of 90 days, mixtures containing 10, 20 and 30% Steel slag as fine aggregates gained 5%, 12% and 20% respectively more compressive strength as compared to 90 days mixture without Steel slag. On the curing age of 56 days and 90 days, the increment in compressive strength percentage of mixtures containing Steel slag is more than control mixes. Increase in compressive strength at all ages with increase in Steel slag content exhibits that with inclusion of Steel slag got denser, resulting in improved strength. Fig. 2 demonstrates that increasing the steel slag replacement causes the compressive strength to rise during any testing period.

Conclusion

The following are the conclusions drawn from this investigation: 1) The compressive strength of mixtures increases with steel slag content and with age. At 28,56 and 90 days for 30% replacement level strength increases by 19%, 19% and 20% respectively over the control mix. 2) At all curing ages, compositions containing steel slag absorbed less water than control combinations. This suggests that adding steel slags to the concrete made it denser. 3) A good resistance against chloride ion penetration is provided by the steel slag concrete mixture. Comparing steel slag combinations to mixtures without steel slag, the cumulative charge that flowed through them was lower.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2023 Sarvesh Yadav, Suresh Singh Kushwah. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.