DISSECTION ON THE COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF CONCRETE BY REPLACING SAND WITH LATERITE SOIL AND M-SAND

Utilization of concrete in most of the civil engineering applications has led to a high demand on the ingredients of concrete. Sand is a demanded ingredient of concrete which is costly due to its lack of availability. The lack of constituents have triggered different searches and investigations for replacing sand with Laterite soil as fine aggregate. This study investigates the suitability of using a mix of Laterite soil and M- sand as the fine aggregate in place of standard seeks to determine whether laterized concrete would satisfy the minimum compressive strength for use in reinforced concrete works. Ordinary Portland cement was used as the binder. Batching was by weight Laterite soil and M- sand was used as the fine aggregate and granite of 20 mm nominal size was used as the coarse aggregate. A total of 12 standard 150 mm size concrete cubes and 4 concrete cylinders of diameter 150mm were casted and cured for 7, 14, 28 days , then weighed and crushed. The average compressive strength of laterized concrete was found to be 29.05 N/mm2a value lower than the average value of 40 N/mm2. The compressive strength obtained by concrete replacing ordinary sand with 50% laterite soil and 50% M- sand at 28 days is 47.08 N/mm2. Therefore laterized concrete could be used as a fine aggregate for making structural concrete in places having problematic soil with poor bearing capacity as the soil should not have to hold larger loads.