Preliminary study on compressive strength of modified Polystyrene (MPS) as lightweight aggregate

Abstract

This research investigates the possibility of making polystyrene as lightweight aggregate. Low density is the advantage of polystyrene. Waste polystyrene foam is modified and sintered in the furnace at the temperatures varying from 130 °C to 220 °C. After sintering process, polystyrene undergo shrinkage until 97 % and become harder. To determine the strength of MPS aggregate, modified compression test is used since the usual tests to determine the strength of normal aggregate are not applicable to the lightweight aggregate, however an attempt is tried to examine the strength of MPS aggregate using Aggregate Crushing Value (ACV). From the ACV test, the result cannot be obtain since the MPS aggregate gets harden and unified with each other thus the value cannot be calculated. It appears that MPS has big potential to be artificial lightweight aggregate.