Production of lightweight concrete from waste clay brick

Abstract

Nowadays, concrete is known as a common material which is widely used in the world. This study has been carried out to identify alternative materials that can be used to replace aggregate in lightweight concrete production. The aimed of the study is to examine the properties of lightweight concrete containing aggregate made from waste clay brick. All the testing results have been compared to ordinary lightweight concrete. Design mixture of lightweight foam concrete with different density levels ranging from 1200 kg/m3 to 2000 kg/m3. Laboratory works were conducted to identify performance of adding different percentage of clay brick with concrete and obtained the optimum percentage of clay brick to be added into the concrete mix. Different percentages of clay brick from 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% were added into concrete mix. The tests involved were compressive strength test, concrete water absorption test and workability test. Besides, curing period of 7, 14, 28 days for ordinary lightweight concrete and samples lightweight concrete cubes were tested under compressive strength test. For 28 days, each concrete cube was tested under water absorption test. The results showed that 25% of waste clay brick shows maximum the compressive strength of 22.24 MPa sample concrete with density 1647 kg/m3. Conclusively, 25% of clay brick was the most optimum percentage to be used as lightweight concrete.