Experimental study of artificial lightweight aggregates using coal fly ash and epoxy resin

A lack of natural aggregates in the future is unavoidable, which generates issues for building development. For many industries, natural resources constitute a significant source of revenue. As a result, light artificial aggregate is produced to anticipate the decreasing source of natural aggregate. Production of artificial geopolymer aggregates, fly ash from the burning of coal has been proposed. This paper investigates the optimal proportion of epoxy resin and coal fly ash-based synthetic aggregates. The artificial aggregates are produced following specific gravity and compressive strength standards that may be used as a component of lightweight structural concrete (LWC). The production polymer lightweight aggregate (PLA) comes from a combination of coal fly ash and epoxy resin. The results show that PLA 50:50 to PLA 74:26 can be used for 6 hours to make structural concrete with a strength of more than 17 MPa. PLA 80:20 could achieve compressive strength with the range of 7-17 MPa. PLA 84:16 achieves a compressive strength range of 0.35 to 7 MPa and is utilized as a non-structural element. However, the flexural strength values in concrete LWC 70:30 and LWC 80:20 are higher, at 46.1% and 7.63%, respectively.