Assessment of Waste Marble Powder on the Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Concrete and Evaluation of Its Shear Strength

Abstract

Currently, the costs of building materials, especially cement, are increasing. Waste marble powder (WMP) could be used as a cement replacement material to produce environmentally friendly concrete to help preserve resources and reduce environmental pollution. The study’s goals are (1) to evaluate the effects of using marble powder in place of cement in high-strength concrete (HSC) on the material’s mechanical properties and durability characteristics. (2) The study is expanded to assess the effect of using partial WMP on the shear behavior of HSC beams under static loads. Eight half-scale simply supported reinforced beams with and without WMP have been tested. Each beam’s cross-section was 120 × 200 mm, and each beam had a total length of 1000 mm. The ratios of the used WMP were 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% by weight, and two different stirrup ratios, 0% and 0.47%, were used. When applied to HSC beams with and without WMP, the shear strength provisions of two of the most used codes, such as the locally used Egyptian Code (ECP 207) and the internationally used American Concrete Institute’s (ACI-2019), were examined. Using the ABAQUS software, the experimental results were compared to the findings of the nonlinear finite element analysis. The results established that partial replacement of cement by WMP led to increases in the concrete’s compressive and tensile strengths of about 15% and 16%, respectively. When tested specimens were exposed to acid attack, there were slight losses in weight and compressive strength (1.25% to 2.47%) for both with and without the addition of WMP. Both the concrete with and without WMP showed the same level of water absorption. Additionally, WMP led to an enhancement in the shear capacities for all beams. Increasing the WMP ratio from 0% to 2.5%, 5%, and 7.5% increased the shear capacity by about 13%, 20%, and 28%, respectively, for beams without stirrups, while for beams with stirrups, the shear capacity improved by 12%, 19%, and 25%, respectively. The enhancement in the beams’ shear capacities could be attributed to the advanced concrete matrix produced by WMP’s extremely small particle size.