Incorporation of Silica Fumes and Waste Glass Powder on Concrete Properties Containing Crumb Rubber as a Partial Replacement of Fine Aggregates

Abstract

Waste management is the first priority for many countries, so the focus of this research is on using waste materials in concrete as fillers and substituting concrete ingredients such as crumb rubber (CR) for fine aggregates. The utilization of waste rubber in concrete has gained attention recently, but CR substitution results in a reduction in mechanical and durability properties due to weak bonding and lower stiffness of CR. To overcome this issue, the addition of strength-increasing waste materials as cement substitutes is investigated along with CR (5%, 10%, and 15%) as fine aggregates and tested for the mechanical and durability behavior of concrete. Constant 10% waste glass powder (WGP) and 10% silica fume (SF) were substituted with cement in separate mixes. The main goal of this study is to investigate the suitable proportion of the materials from SF and WGP for enhancing rubberized concrete’s properties and to evaluate waste materials’ uses considering various parameters. The concrete is compared for both materials used as well as with control concrete and CR concrete for properties such as workability, compressive strength, tensile strength, density, ultrasonic pulse velocity, and dynamic modulus of elasticity. The reduction in compressive strength, tensile strength, workability, density, ultrasonic pulse velocity, and dynamic modulus of elasticity was observed due to the incorporation of CR, but also an increase in these properties with the incorporation of silica fumes (SF) and waste glass powder (WGP) as cement. It was observed that SF enhanced the properties of rubberized concrete better as compared to WGP. The 10% SF with 5% CR enhanced the compressive strength of rubberized concrete without SF by 11%. Similarly, 10% of WGP with 5% of CR enhanced the compressive strength of rubberized concrete by 6%.