UTILIZATION OF PULVERIZED PLASTIC IN CEMENT CONCRETE AS FINE AGGREGATE

P.Suganthy, Dinesh Chandrasekar, Sathish Kumar.P.K

Abstract: Disposal of used Plastics is a major problem in the present era, as the usage of plastics is growing day by day and it takes hundreds of years for plastic material to degrade. So effective ways to recycle & reuse of plastics are being formulated. According to their composition, plastics have been classified into seven types each having their own recycle rate. One such type HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) was taken into consideration as it was easily available & had higher density than other types. The used plastics were collected , ground into smaller components , melted & pulverized in order to get granules of plastic of about 1mm size. The density of the Pulverized plastic was found to be 460 kg/m3 & its specific gravity was 0.46. Sieve analyses were carried out & about 75% of the plastics were found to be in the range of 1 -1.7mm. 45 nos. of 15cm x15cm x15cm cement concrete Cubes of 1:1:2 (M 25) mix were cast for 0% ,25% , 50% , 75% , 100 % sand being replaced with Pulverized plastic material. Volumetric proportioning was adopted instead of design mix since the density of plastic material was too low. Workability test, weight and compressive strength of the cubes were determined. The test results revealed that the yield as well as the ultimate strength of concrete at seventh day decreased by about 3 to 3.2 N/mm2 for 25%replacement & 4 to 6.5 N/mm2 for higher replacements of Plastic when compared to conventional concrete The ultimate as well as the yield strength of concrete at 14th day & 28th day decreased by about 0.2 to 1 N/mm2 for 25%replacement & 9.1 to 14.6 N/mm2 for higher replacements of Plastic when compared to conventional concrete The water Cement ratio was also found to increase with the proportion of Plastics for a slump of 10 mm & weight of the cube decreased with an increase in replacement of Sand by Plastic Material. Thus it is inferred that Replacement of sand by plastic up to 25% can be adopted so that disposal of used plastic can be done as well the deficiency of Natural aggregates can be managed effectively

Keywords: Plastic Concrete, Replacement of Fine aggregates, waste plastics, and Pulverized Plastics in Concrete etc…

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2013.0206018