Lightweight concrete using local industrial by-product

Abstract

Construction is one of the largest users of energy, material resources and water and it is a formidable polluter. One of the major materials used in construction is concrete and ordinary concrete contains about 12 percent cement which is a major producer of greenhouse gas in the world. The use of waste materials as partial replacement of cement in concrete reduces greenhouse gases, frees up land fill space and reduces raw materials consumption. This contributes towards sustainable development, as in a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust. This research work explores the possibility of replacing some percentage of cement in concrete with marble sludge powder to produce lightweight concrete. This was achieved by determining the compressive strength and some hardened properties of concrete like sorptivity and carbonation with marble sludge. The results so far have been able to prove that lightweight concrete can be produced when some percentage of cement is replaced with this waste.