Use of glass powder in concrete to improve Flexural strength

Abstract

The global warming is caused by the emission of green house gases, such as CO2, to the atmosphere. Among
the greenhouse gases, CO2 contributes about 65% of global warming. The global cement industry contributes about 7%
of greenhouse gas emission to the earth’s atmosphere. Consequently efforts have been made in the concrete industry to
use waste materials as partial replacement of coarse or fine aggregates and cement. Waste glass is one materials when
ground to a very fine powder shows pozzolanic properties which can be used as a partial replacement for cement in
concrete. In this paper, an attempt has been made to find out the strength of concrete containing waste glass powder as a
partial replacement of cement for concrete. Cement replacement by glass powder in the range 0% to 15% increment of
5% has been studied. It was tested for compressive strength and flexural strength at the age of 7, 28 and 90 days and
compared with those of conventional concrete. Results showed that replacement of 15% cement by glass powder was
found to have higher strength.
Mixtures containing GLP also performed satisfactorily with respect to drying shrinkage and alkali reactivity,
and there were indications that GLP reduces the chloride ion penetrability of the concrete, thereby reducing the risk of
chloride induced corrosion of the steel reinforcement in concrete. The results demonstrated that GLP can be
incorporated into 40 MPa concrete at dosage rates of 20–30% to replace cement without harmful effects. The use of GLP
provides for considerable value-added utilisation of waste glass in concrete and significant reductions in the production
of green house gases by the cement industry.