INNOVATIVE & ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY BUILDING MATERIALS. Use Of Oil Palm Kernel Shells as an alternative aggregates.

SYNOPSIS: In predominantly rural country like India, proper housing & availability of roads for maintaining connection to the nearby town/ city has been a continuous problem. The problem is mostly faced by the section of the population below the poverty line or just marginally above, in case of housing & by the village dwellers. These problems have to be shouldered therefore by the respective government, administration & therefore newer & more economic possibilities have to be found out. This short term paper tries to find out a solution to these, in economic, environment friendly & cost-effective ness manner & thereby inferring an all round development. AUTHORS: 1. DIBYENDU ADAK. 2. SATYAKI DATTA. Key words: Oil palm kernel shells (OPS), light weight concrete, Marshall Stability.

INTRODUCTION: As discussed in the synopsis, in under developed & developing countries, there is a ever continuing problem of housing, especially faced by the lower section of the population. Moreover theres also the problem of proper roads to connect the villages to the nearby towns/ cities or inter-connection of the villages. But these all have to be done in a very cost effective manner. THE IMPORTANCE OF COSTEFECTIVENESS IN THE CONTEXT OF INDIAN SOCIO-ECONOMIC SCENARIO. Various problems in India have led to the requirement of a cost-effectiveness ways of solving the problems of housing & roads. These are as follows: 1) Low per capita income [some approx rupees 12000/ annum]. 2) High inflation rate. 3) lack of enough free hold land 4) Complexity of housing loans. 5) Negligence on the part of the administration. REQUIREMENT OF ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY MATERIALS: 1) Alternative aggregates in place of the conventional ones. 2) Economic. 3) Natural. 4) Easily available. 5) Equivalent in performance.

The growing concern of resource depletion and global pollution has challenged many engineers to seek and develop new materials relying on renewable resources. These include the use of by-products and waste materials in building construction. Many of these by-products are used as aggregate for the production of lightweight concrete. Although there has been much research conducted on the structural performance of lightweight aggregate concrete, these are mostly confined to naturally occurring aggregates. Being the world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil, Malaysia has pioneered in this field. At the mills, when the fresh fruit bunches (FFB) are processed and oil extraction takes place, solid residues and liquid wastes are generated. These by-products include empty fruit bunches, fiber, shell. In this respect MALAYSIA had put forward a visionary first step. University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) built a small footbridge [Figure 1(a)] of about 2 m in span in May 2001 and a low-cost house [Figure 1(b)] with a floor area of about 59 m2 in 2003, both using OPS concrete. Both structures were constructed on the campus, which is located near the coastal area. This area has an annual rainfall of about 2500 mm, air temperature in the range of 22.9 to 32.2 _C, and relative humidity of 71.6% to 91.0%. (Owens, 1993). OPS aggregate has a unit weight of 500-600 kg/m3 and this is approximately 60% lighter compared to the conventional crushed stone aggregates. Consequently, the resulting concrete will be lightweight. Lightweight concrete using OPS as coarse aggregate is still a relatively new construction material and the structural performance of this concrete is under investigation by the scientists. Based on the properties of the available fine and coarse aggregate, the mix proportions were approximated, followed by the modification of trial mixes to achieve a practical end result.

Fig 3. Particle size distribution of OPS aggregate. TESTING PROGRAMME: Several tests were conducted by the UMS to determine the structural properties of OPS concrete. Compression tests On 100 mm cubes were performed according to BS 1881: Part 116, etc.

The acceptable mix comprised 510 kg/m3 cement, 848 kg/m3 sand, and 308 kg/m3 OPS, with a free water/cement ratio Of 0.38. The cement content used in this study was within the range for lightweight concrete.

TABLE 1 PROPERTIES OF OPS AGREGATE. Properties Max. grain size Shell thickness Sp. Gravity Bulk unit wt. (kg/m3) Fineness Modulus Agg. Impact Value, % Agg. Crushing Value, % 24 hr. water absorption OPS 12.5 mm
0.5-0.3 mm

1.17 500-600 6.08 7.51 8.00 33.0

Fig2. Various shapes of OPS aggregate.

OIL PALM SHELL CONCRETE.

Lightweight concretes normally have densities of less than 2000 kg/m3 and the density of OPS concrete falls within this limit, thus making it lightweight. Compared to normal weight concretes Of 2400 kg/m3, OPS concrete is approximately 20% lighter. This shows that OPS concrete would decrease 20% dead load when used in construction. By reducing the weight of the structure, catastrophic earthquake forces and inertia forces that influence the structures can also be ultimately reduced, as these forces are proportional to the weight of the structure. Cubes tested at an age of 28 days produced strengths of 28.1 MPa, which is approximately 65% higher than the minimum required strength of 17 MPa for structural lightweight concrete recommended by ASTM C330. Properties Of OPS Concrete: Air Dry Density, kg/m3 Compressive Strength, Modulus Of Elasticity 1963 28.12 MPa 5.31 GPa

Fig 4. Bond strength development of OPS concrete. The modulus of elasticity is one of the most important parameters for structural concrete as it is required when assessing deflections and cracking of a structure. Figure 9 shows a typical stress-strain curve for OPS concrete. The strain corresponding to maximum stress is approximately 0.005.

Fig 5. Stress-strain curve for OPS concrete ROAD CONSTRUCTION Fig 3. Compressive strength development of OPS concrete. Palm kernel shells are not common materials in the construction industry. This is either because they are not available in very large quantities as sand or gravel, or because their use for such has not been encouraged. The palm kernel shells also find much importance & proof handy in road construction, especially in rural prospective.

These are explained by the following:

TABLE 3. Strength characteristics of Asphalt concrete.

Fig 7. Particle size distribution of constituents of Asphalt concrete .. TABLE 2: Physical properties of OPS used for road construction. It was observed that on the average as the coarse aggregates were reduced and palm Kernel Shells added, the Marshall stability reduced while the flow increased. This is to be expected because a reduction in flow implies more strength for the mix. Marshall Stability value of 14.44kN was obtained using granite alone as coarse aggregate and 7.78kN using palm kernel shells alone as coarse aggregates. This shows a reduction in percentage of up to 47%. According to [11] Marshall Stability range for road surfaces carrying between 1 and 6000 commercial vehicles per day should be between 2 and 10kN. The implication is that with the proper stress calculation and appropriate thicknesses of underlying layers, even the asphalt concrete with 100% palm kernel shells is suitable for lightly trafficked roads. Since the same amount of bitumen was used, the flow values are almost similar. The increase would have been caused by the weaker bonds created by the palm kernel shells and their high water retention capacity which can mix the bitumen to increase its water content, hence viscosity.

Fig 6. Particle size distribution for palm kernel shells. OPS 0 10 30 50 70 100 Marshall Stability,KN 14.44 13.46 11.96 11.10 10.90 7.78

Although increases in flow values were noticed they still fell below the specified range of 5mm maximum. CONCLUSION: In general, OPS has good potential as a coarse aggregate in structural concrete production and can even be used for low to moderate strength applications such as structural members for low-cost houses. Based on this investigation, the following conclusions can be drawn: (i) The compressive strength of OPS concrete was 28.1 MPa at an age of 28 days, which satisfies the requirement for structural lightweight concrete. (ii) The bond property of OPS concrete is comparable to other types of lightweight concretes. (iii) Palm kernel shells can be used as partial replacement for coarse aggregate up to 10% for heavily trafficked roads and 50% for light trafficked roads. (iv)For the very lightly trafficked roads in the rural communities palm kernel shells can be used as full replacement for the coarse aggregates. This will go a long way into reducing construction & maintenance costs of these roads. (v) The economic power of the rural dwellers will be enhanced if they are encouraged to plant palm trees from which these shells could be available. REFERENCES: Structural Concrete Using Oil Palm Shell (OPS) as Lightweight Aggregate D. C. L. TEO, M. A. MANNAN, V. J. KURIAN University Malaysia Sabah, Civil Engineering Program,
1)

2) Performance of Palm Kernel Shells as a Partial replacement for Coarse Aggregate in Asphalt Concrete Peter Ndoke NDOKE Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Minna.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The authors acknowledge the help of the following for their timely & useful help: 1. Prof M.M.Bag, H.O.D, Civil Engg, H.I.T 2. Ms. Bishakaha Chakraborty, lecturer, Civil Engg, H.I.T

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS:

1. DIBYENDU ADAK. Student of 3rd yr. Of Civil Engineering, HALDIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. MOBILE: +919832263539 E-MAIL: mongia_ce@yahoo.co.in

2. SATYAKI DATTA. Student of 3rd yr. of Civil Engineering, HALDIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. MOBILE: +919433438807. E-MAIL: satyaki_datta_85@yahoo.co.in