Performance of Green Mortar Made From Locally Available Waste Tiles and Silica Fume

The continuous depletion of natural resources used in concrete require vital replacement materials to reduce the consumptions of the natural resources. Moreover, the growth in the population increases the construction of new houses to accommodate the population, which increases the demand concrete and other construction materials. The replacement of the existing building materials with the newly materials proceed from recycling the waste materials for example, flooring tiles, which is usually disposed of in landfills without any benefit in Iraq. Therefore, this study aims to recycle locally available floor tiles waste by using it as a total alternative to fine aggregate to enhance the sustainability by reducing the depletion of natural aggregates. Three types of waste tiles were used in this research, which are marble, granite, and porcelain. Four mortar mixtures were designed, casted and tested in the research. One control mixture made from natural sand aggregate and three mixtures in which the sand was fully replaced with each of marble, granite, and porcelain waste tiles with comparable grading as that for sand. The cement was partially replaced with a 10% silica fume (SF) in all mixtures. The flowability, mechanical and durability tests of mortar mixtures were investigated. The results indicated that the combination of porcelain waste tiles aggregates with 10% silica fume imparted superior performance compared to all other mixtures with improvements of 99% in the compressive strength, 53% in the flexural strength and 17% in the water absorption resistance.