• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.87 no.3
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• pp.221-229
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• 2023

Urbanization and industrialization have significantly increased the amount of solid waste produced in recent decades, posing considerable disposal problems and environmental burdens. The practice of waste utilization in concrete has gained popularity among construction practitioners and researchers for the efficient use of resources and the transition to the circular economy in construction. This study employed Lytag aggregate, an environmentally friendly pulverized fuel ash-based lightweight aggregate, as a substitute for natural coarse aggregate. At the same time, fly ash, an industrial by-product, was used as a partial substitute for cement. Concrete mix M20 was experimented with using fly ash and Lytag lightweight aggregate. The percentages of fly ash that make up the replacements were 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%. The Compressive Strength (CS), Split Tensile Strength (STS), and deflection were discovered at these percentages after 56 days of testing. The concrete cube, cylinder, and beam specimens were examined in the explorations, as mentioned earlier. The results indicate that a 10% substitution of cement with fly ash and a replacement of coarse aggregate with Lytag lightweight aggregate produced concrete that performed well in terms of mechanical properties and deflection. The cementitious composites have varying characteristics as the environment changes. Therefore, understanding their mechanical properties are crucial for safety reasons. CS, STS, and deflection are the essential property of concrete. Machine learning (ML) approaches have been necessary to predict the CS of concrete. The Artificial Fish Swarm Optimization (AFSO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), and Harmony Search (HS) algorithms were investigated for the prediction of outcomes. This work deftly explains the tremendous AFSO technique, which achieves the precise ideal values of the weights in the model to crown the mathematical modeling technique. This has been proved by the minimum, maximum, and sample median, and the first and third quartiles were used as the basis for a boxplot through the standardized method of showing the dataset. It graphically displays the quantitative value distribution of a field. The correlation matrix and confidence interval were represented graphically using the corrupt method.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.311-317
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• 2020

Performance of Sustainable materials continues through using of recycled waste construction materials to minimize the utilization of the natural resources. The cement industry is a major source of CO₂ in the atmosphere which is the main cause of global warming. Replacement of OPC with other sustainable cementitious materials has been the most interesting area of researches. This investigation focuses on the properties of alkali-activated mortar with the different replacement ratios of ceramic tile powder (CTP) by fine soil powder (FSP) (0 to 100)% and different molarities of sodium hydroxide concentrations. The experimental program was conducted by examining the compressive strength, water absorption, and water sorptivity. The results showed that the compressive strength of the specimens at age of (28, 56, and 90 days) increases with an increase in the amount of fine soil powder content and decreases at the age of 120 days. Also, minimum water absorption at the age of 90 days was found in the mixes containing 100% fine soil powder. However, fine soil powder replacement had a negative effect on the sorptivity and water absorption values at the age of 120 days. On the other hand, the 12M sodium hydroxide concentration was considered the optimum concentration compared to other concentrations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.74 no.5
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• pp.671-678
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• 2020

In this work, the dynamic properties of a high performance concrete containing glass powder (GP) was studied. The GP is a new cementitious material obtained by recycling waste glass presenting pozzolanic activity. This eco-friendly material was incorporated in concrete mixes by replacing 20 and 30% of cement. The mechanical properties of building materials highly affect the response of the structure under dynamic actions. First, the resonant vibration frequencies were measured on concrete plate with free boundary conditions after 14, 28 and 90 curing days by using an alternative vibration monitoring technique. This technique measures the average frequencies of several excitations done at different points of the plate. This approach takes into account the heterogeneity of a material like concrete. So, the results should be more precise and reliable. For measuring the bending and torsion resonant frequencies, as well as the damping ratio. The dynamic properties of material such as dynamic elastic modulus and dynamic shear modulus were determined by modelling the plate on the finite element software ANSYS. Also, the instantaneous aroused frequency method and ultrasound method were used to determine the dynamic elastic modulus for comparison purpose, with the results obtained from vibration monitoring technique.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.419-427
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• 2021

The overuse level of cement for civil industry has several undesirable social and ecological consequences. Substitution of cement with industrial wastes, called by-products, such as fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume, metakaoline, rice husk ash, etc. as the mineral admixtures offers various advantages such as technical, economical and environmental which are very important in the era of sustainability in construction industry. The paper presents the experimental investigations for assessing the mechanical properties of the concrete made using the Pozzolanic waste materials (supplementary cementitious materials) such as fly ash and silica fume as the cement replacing materials. These materials were used in eight trial mixes with varying amount of ordinary Portland cement. These SCMs were kept in equal proportions in all the eight trial mixes. The chemical admixture (High Range Water Reducing Admixture) was also added to improve the workability of concrete. The compressive strengths for 7, 28, 40 and 90 days curing were evaluated whereas the flexural and tensile strengths corresponding to 7, 28 and 40 days curing were evaluated. The study corroborates that the Pozzolanic materials used in the present investigation as partial replacement for cement can render the sustainable concrete which can be used in the rigid pavement construction.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2019

The main objective of this study is to evaluate and compare the efficiency of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in enhancing the unconfined compressive strength of soft soil alone and soft soil mixed with recycled tiles. The recycled tiles have been used to treat soft soil in a previous research by Al-Bared et al. (2019) and the results showed significant improvement, but the improved strength value was for samples treated with low cement content (2%). Hence, OPC is added alone in this research in various proportions and together with the optimum value of recycled tiles in order to investigate the improvement in the strength. The results of the compaction tests of the soft soil treated with recycled tiles and 2, 4, and 6% OPC revealed an increment in the maximum dry density and a decrement in the optimum moisture content. The optimum value of OPC was found to be 6%, at which the strength was the highest for both samples treated with OPC alone and samples treated with OPC and 20% recycled tiles. Under similar curing time, the strength of samples treated with recycled tiles and OPC was higher than the treated soil with the same percentage of OPC alone. The stress-strain curves showed ductile plastic behaviour for the untreated soft clay and brittle behaviour for almost all treated samples with OPC alone and OPC with recycled tiles. The microstructural tests indicated the formation of new cementitious products that were responsible for the improvement of the strength, such as calcium aluminium silicate hydrate. This research promotes recycled tiles as a green stabiliser for soil stabilisation capable of reducing the amount of OPC required for ground improvement. The replacement of OPC with recycled tiles resulted in higher strength compared to the control mix and this achievement may results in reducing both OPC in soil stabilisation and the disposal of recycled tiles into landfills.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.255-263
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• 2022

Lime stabilization has conventionally been listed amid the key techniques of chemical stabilization. Replacing lime with sustainable agro-based by-products have gained prominence in recent decades. Bagasse ash (BA) is one such potential alternatives, an industrial waste with abundance in production, and industries exploring sustainable solutions for its safe disposal. Supplementing BA with lime could be an ideal approach to reduce lime consumption. However, suitability of BA and lime for the stabilization of expansive clays, such as black cotton (BC) soil is yet to be explored. This paper therefore aims to investigate the suitability of BA-lime mixtures to stabilize BC soil with emphasis to compaction behaviors and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) using standard laboratory procedures. Suitability of BA-lime mixture is then assessed against addition of calcium sulphate which, from previous experience, is detrimental with lime stabilization. Experimental outcomes nominate 15% BA as the optimum value observed from both compaction and UCS data, while addition of 4% lime to 15% BA showed the best results. Mineralogical and microstructural analysis show the presence of cementitious compounds with addition of lime and calcium sulphate with curing periods. While, formation of Ettringite needles were noted with the addition of calcium sulphate in BA-lime mixtures (at optimum values) after 90-day curing, and UCS results showed a decrease at this point. To this end, addition of BA in lime stabilization showed encouraging results as assessed from the compaction and UCS results. Nonetheless usage of calcium salts, with utmost emphasis on calcium sulphate and equivalent should be avoided.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.388-395
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• 2016

This paper explores the photocatalytic sensitivity of cement mortar incorporated with recycled $TiO_2$ from waste water sludge. Basically, $TiO_2$ cluster sank down slowly to the bottom of cement mortar specimen before setting and hardening process. This leads the mismatch of $TiO_2$ concentration on the top and the bottom faces of a specimen. This poorly dispersed $TiO_2$-cement mortar naturally exhibits poor NOx removal efficiency especially on the top of cementitious structure. In architectural engineering application such as building or housing structures, one can simply filp over from the bottom so that more $TiO_2$ concentrated surface can be placed outward into the air. However, in highway pavement case, this could not be applicable due to in-situ installation of concrete pavement. Hence, the dispersion of $TiO_2$ cluster inside the cementitous material is getting important issue onto road construction application. To elaborate this issue, according to our results, silica fume, high-ranged water reducer, viscosity agent, blast furnace slag were not enhanced much of dispersion characteristics of $TiO_2$ cluster. The combination of foaming agent and accelerator of hardening with viscosity agent and small grain size of fine aggregate may help the dispersion of $TiO_2$ inside cementitious materials. Even though the enhanced dispersion were applied to the specimen, NOx removal efficiency doest not change much for the top surface of the specimen. This concurrently affected by the presence of tiny air voids and the dispersion of $TiO_2$ in that these voids could easily adsorbed NOx gas with the aid of large surface area.

• Journal of the Korean Recycled Construction Resources Institute
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.89-96
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• 2023

In this paper, a ferrosilicon by-product was evaluated to confirm the feasibility of recycling it as supplementary cementitious material of ordinary Portland cement in concrete. Three different levels of replacement ratio (10 %, 20 % and 30 % of total binder) were applied to find which is the most beneficial to be used as a binder. Ferrosilicon concrete was initially assessed at setting time and compressive strength. Durability was evaluated by the resistance to chloride penetration test(RCPT) and alkali-silica reaction(ASR) with a comparison to silica fume concrete due to their similarity in chemical composition. The porosimetry and X-ray diffraction analysis along with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy give information on the microstructural characteristics of the ferrosilicon concrete. It was found that 10 % ferrosilicon concrete has higher strength while 20 %, 30 % have lower strength than OPC concrete. However, chemical resistance to chloride attack is higher when replacement is increased. Compared to silica fume, the durability of ferrosilicon might be less efficient however, it is obviously beneficial than OPC. High SiO₂ content in ferrosilicon results in producing more C-S-H gel which could make denser pore structure. Most of the risk of alkali silica reaction to silicate binders through length change tests was less than 0.2 %, and both mortar using ferrosilicon and silica fume showed better resistance to alkali silica reaction as the substitution rate increased.Reuse of industrial waste rather than producing highly refined additives might reduce environmental load during manufacture and save costs.