Replacement of Fine Aggregate by Iron Ore Tailing (IOT) in Concrete for Sustainable Development

Abstract

An increase in iron ore processing to meet the global demand has resulted in the generation of billions of tons of iron ore tailings (IOT). Also, the increase in construction activities has led to the over exploitation of river beds for sand. In this present study, fine aggregates are replaced by iron ore tailings in M20 grade concrete at varying percentages of 20%,30%,40%,50%,60%. The cubes and cylinders were casted and their compressive strength and split tensile strength were evaluated for 7 days and 28 days. It is observed from the test results that the iron ore tailings aggregate concrete exhibited a good mechanical strength compared to the control mix. The compressive strength has increased with the increase in replacement of iron ore tailings in concrete, which has shown an improvement of 18.41% over conventional aggregate concrete. An incremental increase of 10.3 % was observed in the case of split tensile strength for 60 % replacement of fine aggregate with iron ore tailings.