Abstract

Currently India has taken a major initiative on developing the infrastructures such as express highways, power projects and industrial structures etc., to meet the requirements of globalization, in the construction of buildings and other structures. Concrete plays the key role and a large quantum of concrete is being utilized in every construction practices. River sand, which is one of the constituents used in the production of conventional concrete, has become very expensive and also becoming scarce due to depletion of river bed. Quarry dust is a waste obtained during quarrying process. It has very recently gained good attention to be used as an effective filler material instead of fine aggregate. In the present study, the hardened and durable properties of concrete using quarry dust were investigated. Also, the use of quarry dust as the fine aggregate decreases the cost of concrete production in terms of the complete replacement for natural river sand. This paper reports the experimental study which investigated the influence of 100% replacement of sand with quarry dust. Initially cement mortar cube was studied with various proportions of quarry dust (CM 1:3, CM 1:2, and CM 1:1). The experimental results showed that the addition of quarry dust for a fine to coarse aggregate ratio of 0.6 was found to enhance the compressive properties as well as elastic modulus.

Key words: Concrete, quarry dust, fillers, elastic modulus, compressive strength.