Study on the Properties of Alumina Based Sulfur Concrete Made with Waste Granite Aggregates

Growing interests in sulfur usefulness as a bond in the sulfur concrete is because of the large availability of this raw material and advantages of the created composite. A huge amount of sulfur is obtained as a by product from the fuel desulphurisation process or crude oil refining process or as a natural raw material. As an innovative solution for the waste disposal problem, this waste sulfur can be efficiently utilized in many ways like preparing sulfur concrete, sulfur asphalt, and aggregate coatings. Mainly waste sulfur used for the role of binder in concrete has been rapidly pursued to replace entire water required for concrete mixing. As this eliminates the use of water for mixing, the concrete prepared is also called waterless concrete. This study tries to investigate the variation in mechanical and durability properties of sulfur concrete based on alumina as filler material and industrial waste granite as partial replacement for coarse aggregates. The properties are then compared with ordinary sulfur concrete without filler material and made with natural coarse aggregates. Most suitable mix proportion for the sulfurcrete is taken by reviewing different literatures of the available journals. The selected mix proportion includes 34% Sulfur, 30% fine aggregates and 36% coarse aggregates. An unsaturated cyclic hydrocarbon Dicyclopentadiene is used for the modification of sulfur. Filler alumina is added in different combinations into the selected mix. The optimum percentage combination of sulfur and alumina is found out. The coarse aggregates are then replaced with 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% percentages of waste granite aggregates and the optimum percentage replacement is worked out. Various mechanical and durability tests including compressive strength, split tensile strength, water absorption and acid resistance are conducted for the normal and replaced sulfur concrete. The variations in mechanical and durability properties of replaced sulfurcrete are then to be compared with sulfur concrete without filler material.