EVALUATION OF STRENGTH PROPERTIES OF SHREDDED PLASTIC FIBRE REINFORCED CONCRETE
1Zakka, P.W., 1Anowai, S.I., 1Ishaya, A. A., 2Bang, D.P., 3Yohanna, H.S., 1Williams, F. W., 1Agboju, S.E and 1Obi, V. T
1Department of Building, University of Jos, Nigeria.
2Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), Jos, Nigeria.
3Department of Building technology, Bells University of technology, Ota, Ogun State
ABSTRACT
Numerous waste materials are generated from manufacturing processes, service industries and municipal solid wastes. The increasing awareness about the environment has tremendously contributed to the concerns related with disposal of the generated wastes. Solid waste management is one of the major environmental concerns in the world. With the scarcity of space for land filling and due to its ever-increasing cost, waste utilization has become an attractive alternative to disposal. Today there are still many issues about landfill capacity problem. Plastics are one of the most widely used materials that change the human life for more than six decades ago. Plastic waste has a slow degradation rate. In this study Polyethylene Terephthalete (PET) is used as fibre to investigate the compressive and flexural behavior of concrete. To address this issue the fibers from used plastics were added in various percentages in the concrete. The aim of this research is to determine the strength of concrete produced using shredded plastic bottle fibre as reinforcement. The compressive and tensile strengths of various concrete specimens were tested to determine how the incorporation of recycled plastic as a replacement of coarse aggregate would affect the development of strength in the mixes. A series of five concrete mixes were compared at replacement increments of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%. All stages of plastic replacement showed a noticeable decrease in compressive strength. The test results were compared and the relationships between the observed and predicted strengths were given. It was observed that both the compressive and flexural strengths decreased with each increase in percentage addition of plastic. At 5% addition of PET there was a 20% decrease in compressive strength and a 40% decrease in flexural strength of concrete respectively. Thus, it was recommended that shredded polyethylene terephthalate can be used for non-structural elements.
Keywords: Evaluation, Strength, Properties, Shredded, Plastic, Reinforced, Concrete
