Publications

The demand for lightweight building materials that are easy to work with, self-compacting, and environmentally friendly has been acknowledged by the construction industry globally. Given this demand, it has been discovered that a recent innovative material, lightweight foamed concrete (LFC), may be able to reduce the weight of ordinary concrete. Besides, utilizing LFC with the addition of natural fibres is seen as a great effort to assist sustainability. Corrosion of reinforcing steel, which affects the behaviour and longevity of concrete buildings, is one of the most significant challenges in the construction of reinforced LFC. Therefore, the focus of this work is on identifying the possible application of Musa Acuminate fibre (MAF) in LFC. The intention of this study is to ascertain the durability characteristics of LFC with MAF. The cast has a low density of 550 kg/m3. We'll employ several volume fractions of MAF that are 0.15%, 0.30%, 0.45%, and 0.60%. The ability to absorb water, porosity, drying shrinkage and ultrasonic pulse velocity are the four criteria that will be evaluated. For the purpose of creating the necessary density of LFC, the protein-based foaming agent Noraite PA-1 was used. A constant water-to-cement ratio of 0.45 and a constant cement-to-sand ratio of 1.5 were used to get comparable results. The findings showed that for all of the durability attributes taken into account in this research, an increase of 0.45% MAF produced the best results. This resulted from the MAF and LFC cementitious composite's better bonding performance. Additionally, the fibres served as an anti-micro crack, preventing LFC cracks.

In this study, ground glass powder and crushed waste glass were used to replace coarse and fine aggregates. Within the scope of the study, fine aggregate (FA) and coarse aggregate (CA) were changed separately with proportions of 10%, 20%, 40%, and 50%. According to the mechanical test, including compression, splitting tensile, and flexural tests, the waste glass powder creates a better pozzolanic effect and increases the strength, while the glass particles tend to decrease the strength when they are swapped with aggregates. As observed in the splitting tensile test, noteworthy progress in the tensile strength of the concrete was achieved by 14%, while the waste glass used as a fractional replacement for the fine aggregate. In samples where glass particles were swapped with CA, the tensile strength tended to decrease. It was noticed that with the adding of waste glass at 10%, 20%, 40%, and 50% of FA swapped, the increase in flexural strength was 3.2%, 6.3%, 11.1%, and 4.8%, respectively, in amount to the reference one (6.3 MPa). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis consequences also confirm the strength consequences obtained from the experimental study. While it is seen that glass powder provides better bonding with cement with its pozzolanic effect and this has a positive effect on strength consequences, it is seen that voids are formed in the samples where large glass pieces are swapped with aggregate and this affects the strength negatively. Furthermore, simple equations using existing data in the literature and the consequences obtained from the current study were also developed to predict mechanical properties of the concrete with recycled glass for practical applications. Based on findings obtained from our study, 20% replacement for FA and CA with waste glass is recommended.

Confined concrete in pipes provides a solution for the structures to resist lateral forces and avoids the problems associated with production of confined concrete and lateral reinforcement. To evaluate the influence of PVC pipe on the compressive behavior of concrete filled composite tubes, ABAQUS software was used to simulate 44 concrete filled PVC pipes (CFPT). The influence of internal steel reinforcement, unconfined concrete strength, slenderness ratio, specimen’s size and thickness of PVC tube on failure mode load carrying capacity, and strain of PVC confined reinforced concrete column was studied. The present discussion show that the existing analytical models failed to capture the effect of these parameters. On the other hand, the proposed finite element (FE) models achieve a very good agreement between the experimental and analytical values. The proposed FE model can provide an acceptable portrayal of the CFPT’s response. The response of confined concrete was estimated using trial and error approach and as a result a model for the strain of confined concrete was proposed. The effect of these parameters on the CFPT leads to development of analytical models.

In recent decades, researchers have begun to investigate innovative sustainable construction materials for the development of greener and more environmentally friendly infrastructures. The main purpose of this article is to investigate the possibility of employing date palm tree waste as a natural fiber alternative for conventional steel and polypropylene fibers (PPFs) in concrete. Date palm fibers are a common agricultural waste in Middle Eastern nations, particularly Saudi Arabia. As a result, this research examined the engineering properties of high-strength concrete using date palm fibers, as well as the performance of traditional steel and PPF concrete. The concrete samples were made using 0.0%, 0.20%, 0.60%, and 1.0% by volume of date palm, steel, and polypropylene fibers. Ten concrete mixtures were made in total. Compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength, density, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), water absorption capability, and water permeability tests were performed on the fibrous-reinforced high-strength concrete. With a 1% proportion of date palm, steel, and polypropylene fibers, the splitting tensile strength improved by 17%, 43%, and 16%, respectively. By adding 1% fiber, flexural strength was increased by 60% to 85%, 67% to 165%, and 61% to 79%. In addition, date palm fibers outperformed steel and PPFs in terms of density, UPV, and water permeability. As a result, date palm fibers might potentially be employed in the present construction sector to improve the serviceability of structural elements.

Abstract The disposal of waste from coal plants and waste glass (WG) is causing significant environmental problems all around the planet. Currently, the amount of discarding of these wastes is increased. One possible option is to utilize fly ash (FA) from coal plants as a partial substitute for the cement and EG as a fractional substitute for sand in concrete, respectively. Besides, fibers can improve the strength and durability of concrete; explicitly speaking, using coconut fibers (CFs) is in trend due to their highest toughness among natural fibers making it suitable material as fiber reinforcement in concrete. This research studies the concrete behavior with 15% FA as a partial substitute of cement with 2% CFs and waste beverage glass as sand at various replacement levels (14%, 15%, 16%, 17%, 18%, 19%, and 20%). Mechanical and durability characteristics of concrete were assessed, such as compression strength, water absorption, flexural strength, density, workability, and water absorption. The current study results show that adding FA, CFs, and WG improved microstructure quality at 16% replacement of sand. The study showed that the M4 mix has enhanced the properties of concrete samples as compressive and flexural strength was improved to 47.2 and 6.2 MPa and improved apparent density by 20%. Adding more WGP than the optimal proportion (16%) led to detrimental effects on void ratio, permeability, and water absorption. Therefore, 16% of sand with WG and 15% of FA with cement can be substituted with 2% CFs to develop sustainable concrete.

The building industry, which emits a significant quantity of greenhouse gases, is under tremendous pressure due to global climate change and its consequences for communities. Given the environmental issues associated with cement production, geopolymer concrete has emerged as a sustainable construction material. Geopolymer concrete is an eco-friendly construction material that uses industrial or agricultural by-product ashes as the principal binder instead of Portland cement. Fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, rice husk ash, metakaolin, and palm oil fuel ash were all employed as binders in geopolymer concrete, with fly ash being the most frequent. The most important engineering property for all types of concrete composites, including geopolymer concrete, is the compressive strength. It is influenced by different parameters such as the chemical composition of the binder materials, alkaline liquid to binder ratio, extra water content, superplasticizers dosages, binder content, fine and coarse aggregate content, sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate content, the ratio of sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide, the concentration of sodium hydroxide (molarity), curing temperature, curing durations inside oven, and specimen ages. In order to demonstrate the effects of these varied parameters on the compressive strength of the fly ash-based geopolymer concrete, a comprehensive dataset of 800 samples was gathered and analyzed. According to the findings, the curing temperature, sodium silicate content, and alkaline solution to binder ratio are the most significant independent parameters influencing the compressive strength of the fly ash-based geopolymer concrete (FA-BGPC) composites.