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Strength evaluation of eco-friendly concrete using Taguchi method

Umar Mohd, Gajalakshmi Pandulu ⇑, Revathy Jayaseelan
Department of Civil Engineering, B. S. Abdur Rahman Crescent Institute of Science & Technology, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Natural resources are getting depleted day by day. The construction sectors consume a large number of
Received 12 October 2019 natural resources, which in turn produce a high amount of industrial wastes. In the past, many research-
Received in revised form 8 November 2019 ers have tried to make concrete eco-friendly by utilizing industrial wastes such as fly ash, construction
Accepted 11 November 2019
and demolition wastes etc., In this study, an eco-friendly concrete was made by replacing cement with
Available online xxxx
fly ash and normal coarse aggregate with recycled coarse aggregate. To check the suitability of using recy-
cled coarse aggregate in eco-friendly concrete, various tests were conducted to determine the physical
Keywords:
and mechanical properties of normal coarse aggregate and recycled coarse aggregate. In the present
Normal coarse aggregate (NCA)
Recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)
study, work has been carried out by three different phases. In Phase I, eco-friendly concrete was made
Taguchi method by using recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) as a replacement of normal coarse aggregate (NCA) and fly
Eco-friendly concrete ash as a replacement for cement. In Phase II, Taguchi method and Minitab software were used as a tech-
Microstructure analysis nique for the optimization of mix design. In Phase III, the specimens of the optimized mix were cast for
the confirmation test of Compressive strength, Flexural Strength and Split tensile strength. Furthermore,
the study has been extended to analyse the microstructural characteristics of the specimen using SEM. It
is concluded that, 40% replacement RCA with NCA was found to be optimum and can be suitably used for
the design of eco-friendly concrete.
Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Materials Engineering and Characterization 2019.

1. Introduction
The need for reducing the environmental impact of concrete
was recognized in a report of the Strategic Development Council.
An abbreviated version of the report ‘‘Vision – 2030: A Vision for
the US Concrete Industry”, was published in Concrete International
March 2001. According to this report, the concrete technologist
was faced with the challenge of leading future development in a
way that protects environmental quality while projecting as a con-
struction material of choice. The public concern will be responsibly
addressed regarding climate change resulting from the increased
concentration of global warming gases [1]. Eco-friendly Concrete
was a revolutionary topic in the history of the concrete industry.
It reduces environmental impact with a reduction in CO2 emission.
Use of eco-friendly Concrete can help us reduce a lot of wastage of
several products. Various non – biodegradable products can also be
used and thus avoiding the issue of their disposal [2]. For the past
three decades, many researchers have performed studies on the
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gajalakshmi@crescent.edu (G. Pandulu).
need for eco-friendly concrete. The concrete industry today was
the largest consumer of natural resources, such as water, sand,
gravel, and crushed rock [3]. So, the concrete industry needs to
be reoriented through the adoption of environmentally friendly
and more sustainable technology. Mehta et al. [4] pointed out that,
conservation of materials, should be the new emphasis for the
concrete industry in the 21st century. The eco-friendly concrete
as concrete which uses the waste material as at least one of its
components, or its production process does not lead to environ-
mental destruction, or it has high performance and lifecycle
sustainability [5].
In order to reduce the environmental impact of concrete, sup-
plementary cementitious material and recycled aggregate are used
by many researchers. Environmental protection, conservation of
natural aggregate resources, shortage of waste disposal land, and
increasing the cost of waste treatment prior to disposal are the
principal factors responsible for growing interest in recycling con-
crete waste as an aggregate [6]. By substituting recycled materials
for natural materials, it was possible to substantially improve the
resource productivity of the concrete industry immediately [1].
Naik et al. [7] reported that, if suitably selected, ground, cleaned

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.11.136
2214-7853/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Materials Engineering and Characterization 2019.

Please cite this article as: U. Mohd, G. Pandulu and R. Jayaseelan, Strength evaluation of eco-friendly concrete using Taguchi method, Materials Today:
Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.11.136