The Effects of Using Recycled Tiles as Partial Fine Aggregate Replacement for Cement on Pervious Concrete

Members: John William Go, Ethan Matthew Tan, Franco Miguel Umalin, Anthony Leonsua, Sharlize, Lauren Yu, Yannica Schein King, Leonila Therese Dulatas

BASE TEMPLATE: 12-STEM C Technical Committee | EDITED BY: Karla Cruz and Juanna Chica

Introduction

The Philippines is prone to natural disasters due to its location in the Northwestern Pacific Basin, home to the most active tropical cyclones in the world (World Bank Group, 2021). Floods can have various impacts on a country’s overall being, causing serious health problems and damage to infrastructures, crops, livestock, and businesses. With that, the government has made attempts to address the country’s issues of floods; however, these are ineffective and expensive (Scholz & Grabowieki, 2007).

Considering the frequent floods in the Philippines, pervious concrete can help minimize the amount of flooding. Despite its lower compressive strength compared to normal concrete, it can still filter stormwater and filtrate waste. The use of marble tile waste powder and ceramic waste powder as partial cement replacement can be a way to reduce the CO2 emissions from cement and its drawbacks to the environment (Maurya et al., 2023; Taffese et al., 2023). Since the Philippines is a developing country, the usage of recycled fine aggregate (RFA) in pervious concrete can be an alternative to reduce costs, ensuring accessibility without compromising effectiveness.

Therefore, the researchers aim to determine the effects of different rates of recycled fine aggregate (RFA) on pervious concrete. Specifically, the researchers would like to answer the following:

1. What are the effects of using different levels of RFA on the pervious concrete samples in terms of the following:

1.1 Compressive strength

1.2 Porosity

2. Which amount of RFA showed the most significant difference in terms of porosity and compressive strength compared to that of the pervious concrete with no RFA:

2.1 5% RFA

2.2 10% RFA

2.3 15% RFA

abstract

The Philippines encounters various natural disasters such as typhoons resulting in the flooding of urban areas, which could cause harm to the general population. To address flooding in urban areas, pervious concrete, a highly porous material that allows water to permeate, is used for flood control in other parts of the world like the USA and Japan; however, its usage is not frequent in the Philippines. This paper serves as an additional local coverage of pervious concrete in the country. To improve its characteristics, the fine aggregates of pervious concrete are replaced with the standard concrete fine aggregates for a more eco-friendly alternative. Eight percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions are merely from the production of cement. The researchers intend to advocate an eco-friendly and cheaper way of partially replacing cement. In this study, combined ceramic waste powder and marble waste powder as Recycled Fine Aggregates (RFA) for pervious concrete with different levels was employed. The compressive strength and porosity tests were conducted to see the effects of the RFA. The result shows that all of the RFA decreased in porosity while 15% fine aggregate replacement increased the compressive strength by 2.64%. The statistical analysis shows that the different rates of RFA replacement on pervious concrete show no significant difference in terms of porosity and compressive strength compared to no RFA. Thus, recycled tiles can be used as RFA for cement on pervious concrete. Keywords: pervious concrete, recycled fine aggregate, porosity, compressive strength, reduce CO2 emissions, eco-friendly, costless

methodology

The study investigates the impact of RFA, focused on their compressive strength and porosity. The composition ratios for the pervious concrete and the ACI 522R-10 code were derived from the American Concrete Institute (2010, as cited in Zeeshan & Farooq, 2020). The sample was divided into three sample groups with three replicates each. All sample groups were assigned a ratio of 6:1, where the coarse aggregates (i.e., gravel) have six parts in the components and one part is the cement with RFA as binder. Each sample group replaced cement with 5%, 10%, and 15% of RFA. Meanwhile, in all sample groups, the water-to-cement ratio was maintained at 40%. The control group consists of three replicates of the standard mixture of pervious concrete.

The instruments for this study are the compressive strength and porosity tests. Compressive strength can determine the maximum stress, while porosity tests determine the amount of water the pervious concrete can hold (Vu et al., 2020; Muda et al., 2023). Following Akkaya and Cagatay (2021), the formula of the porosity is:

Following Sahdeo et al. (2021), the formula for compressive strength shown in the ASTM-C39 code is:

The researchers used paired t-tests to determine which among the three rates are significantly different compared to the control group in terms of porosity and compressive strength.

The experimental groups 5%, 10%, and 15% achieved 47.42%, 45.31%, and 47.21% porosity, respectively, which is lower compared to the control group with 51.64%. Comparing 5%, 10%, and 15% to 0% yielded the p-values 0.5631, 0.0633, and 0.3971, respectively. The p-values are greater than 0.05, indicating that each of the rates has no significant difference in terms of porosity compared to the control group. The results of compressive strength show that using 15% RFA has the highest compressive strength which is 1.12MPa followed by 5%, and 10% with 1.09MPa, 1.03MPa, and 1.02MPa, respectively. Comparing 5%, 10%, and 15% yielded the p-values 0.9041, 0.7752, and 0.9198, respectively. All of the rates have a p-value greater than 0.05 which shows that the RFA showed no significant difference with no cement replacement on pervious concrete in terms of compressive strength.

Therefore, since the compressive strength did not differ from the control group, the RFA can lower the cost of the concrete, making it more budget and economic-friendly. Although the mixtures used for pervious concrete are not usable for pavement roads, they can be suitable for private properties in residential areas with minimal foot traffic. It was also found that RFA stored the same water amount despite having different levels of RFA; therefore, RFAs can be utilized as a partial replacement for cement to reduce CO2 emissions around the atmosphere.

The researchers offer several suggestions to the beneficiaries of this study. Alternative testing procedures (e.g., slump test and flexural strength test) could provide further information on the concrete’s performance. Furthermore, other recycled fine aggregates can be used to possibly reduce global waste and potentially increase the compressive strength of the concrete. Lastly, private property owners and citizens residing in flood-prone areas are recommended to utilize pervious concrete slabs in areas not prone to sediment accumulation to protect their houses against flooding.

REFERENCES

Akkaya, A., & Çağatay, İ. H. (2021). Investigation of the density, porosity, and permeability properties of pervious concrete with different methods. Construction and Building Materials, 294, 123539. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.123539

American Concrete Institute (2010). 522R-10: Report on pervious concrete.

https://www.concrete.org/publications/internationalconcreteabstractsportal/m/details/id/51663557

Maurya, A., Patel, P. S., Mall, A., Akitri, & Singh, P. (2023). Interlocking pavement blocks from waste concrete. International Research Journal of Modernization in Engineering Technology and Science, 5(5), 2582-5208. https://www.doi.org/10.56726/IRJMETS39975

Muda, M. M., Legese, A. M., Urgessa, G., & Boja, T. (2023). Strength, porosity, and permeability properties of porous concrete made from recycled concrete aggregates. Construction Materials, 3(1), 81–92. https://doi.org/10.3390/constrmater3010006

Sahdeo, S. K., Chandrappa, A. K., & Biligiri, K. P. (2021). Effect of compaction type and compaction efforts on structural and functional properties of pervious concrete. Transportation in Developing Economies, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40890-021-00129-0

Scholz, M., & Grabowiecki, P. (2007). Review of permeable pavement systems. Building and Environment, 42(11), 3830–3836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2006.11.016

Taffese, W.Z., Nega, D. M., Yifru, B. W., Ayele, Y. K., & Yehualaw, M. D. (2023). Impact of partial replacement of cement with a blend of marble and granite waste powder on mortar. Applied Sciences, 13(15), 8998. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13158998

Vu, C., Plé, O., Weiss, J., & Amitrano, D. (2020). Revisiting the concept of characteristic compressive strength of concrete. Construction and Building Materials, 16(23), 7496.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.120126

World Bank Group. (2021). Philippines. https://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org/country/philippines/vulnerability

Zeeshan, M., & Farooq, A. (2020) A study on compressive strength of pervious concrete [Unpublished master’s thesis]. Cecos University of IT and Emerging Sciences.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341980054_A_Study_on_Compressive_Strength_of_Pervious_Concrete