EFFECT OF SUGAR CANE BAGASSE ASH ON THE PHYSICAL AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF PLASTIC FIBER REINFORCED CONCRETE

Abstract

Concrete is a manmade material which is used for civil engineering construction and is preferred all over the world because of its advantageous properties like good compressive strength, high mould ability, and durability. Despite its advantages, concrete has some undesirable properties like weak in tension, brittleness, less resistance to cracking and heavy weight. Dwindling stocks have also been reported due to the over exploitation of the natural resources used in making conventional concrete. However, efforts have been made in finding alternatives to the traditional materials and to improve concrete properties. Research has shown that concrete properties can be improved by industrial, agricultural and domestic wastes such as plastics, sugar cane bagasse ash and so many others. Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) fibers are used to improve fatigue strength and increase tensile strength. Sugar cane bagasse ash, from its chemical composition has exhibited pozzolanic properties and hence can be used to partially replace cement in order to improve concrete properties. In this study, the mechanical and physical properties of Plastic Fiber Reinforced Concrete were investigated with partial replacement of ordinary cement with Sugar cane bagasse ash by 0%, 10% and 15% by proportion of weight of cement and PET fibers were incorporated in the mixes at different percentage. An experimental analysis with a mix ratio of 1:2:3 for cement: fine aggregates: coarse aggregates with a constant water to cement ratio of 0.57 was used. The PET fibers were obtained by shredding the PET bottles that were collected from nearby restaurants and dustbins, into rectangular strips of 35mm length, 5mm width and 0.2mm thickness with an aspect ratio of 7, they were incorporated in to the mix at percentages of 1%, 2% and 3% of the weight of cement. Physical tests: workability on fresh concrete and water absorption on hardened concrete of each batch was carried out at 28 days. Mechanical tests like density of concrete, compressive strength and splitting tensile strength were carried out on hardened concrete at 7 days and 28 days of curing. The results showed that there was an improvement in splitting tensile strength and compressive strength at 10%SCBA substitution and 1%PET fibers but reduced on further addition of both PET fibers and SCBA substitution.