AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF PLAIN CONCRETE USING WASTE FOUNDARY SAND

Abstract

A huge amount of sand is being used by the metal foundries within the metal casting process, the sand is successfully recycled and reused by the foundries. After some time, foundries are not able to use the same sand again, then sand is taken off the foundry and known as "Foundry Sand". There is almost 6 to 10 million tons production of foundry sand annually. Similar to lots of waste materials, used sand has helpful implementation to additional industries. Used WFS contains mainly of silica sand, which is coated with a thin layer of burnt carbon, remaining binders and mud. To enhance the strength and other durability aspects, WFS can be utilized in concrete. So, it can be utilized as a partial alternative of cement or while a partial alternative of natural aggregates or fully substitute of natural fine aggregate and as a supplementary addition for accomplishing different properties of cement concrete.
In this study, the effect of used foundry sand as a substitution of fine aggregate on the compressive strength, split tensile strength and Flexural strength of cement concrete of M20 grade and M40 grade was investigated. There were six percentages of replacement to which foundry sand was replaced by weight of fine aggregates i.e. 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 1000% by weight of the fine aggregate. Tests were conducted for mechanical properties of all replacement levels at different curing periods (7- days, 28-days).