EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF FIBER REINFORCED COCONUT SHELL AGGREGATE CONCRETE WITH FLY ASH

Abstract

Solid wastes has increased many fold
causing disposal problems and environmental
pollution. It has become common sight to find large
dumps of solid waste near every town and villages
causing air, land and water pollution. A productive
use of large scale wastes such as fly ash, coconut
shell, rice husks, furnace slag etc., has become a
matter of importance, as there is considerable scope
for better management and disposal of the same.
The waste materials considered in this work are fly
ash, coconut shell. The disposal method proposed is
by partially using them in building elements such as
reinforced concrete elements and plain concrete
elements.In this study, the compressive strength of
concrete cubes of size 150 mm was carried out. The
cement was replaced by 0% 10%, 20%, 30% of fly
ash and add 0%, 0.1%, 0.3% and 0.5% of
polypropylene fibre. The optimum percentage was
found. The crushed coconut shells as substitutes for
conventional coarse aggregate in gradation of 50%
and 100%. For these optimum percentages three
beams of 1700 X150 X100 mm were cast and tested.
Extensive measurements such as material
properties, deflection and ultimate load carrying
capacity of the beams were done in the study for
comparison.The experimental results shows that the
ultimate load carrying capacity of coconut shell
aggregate beam with fly ash and polypropylene
fibre were higher than the control beam. The
compressive test and split tensile test indicate that
the gain in strength depends on curing time and
strength increases gradually with the increase in fly
ash and fibre content. It is concluded that a
maximum of 50% of coarse aggregate can be
replaced by coconut shell without any compromise
on strength properties. The aim behind this is to use
low cost material like coconut shell and thus taking
close to the concept of low cost housing.