Use of Pet Bottles Scrap as an Additive in Concrete

The management of waste materials is a gargantuan problem these days. Hence, the researchers are trying to use waste materials as an additive to concrete. The present work was aimed at assessing the effect of PET shreds on the quality of concrete in general & its compressive, flexural, split tensile strength in particular. In this research total 45 specimens were cast in M: 20 grade design mix concrete, divided equally over cubes, beams & cylinders. The manually cut PET shreds (2mm wide & 45 mm long) were added in different percentages (between 0.25 & 1%) by volume of concrete. After 28 days of curing & 24 hours air drying, all the specimens were subjected to non-destructive testing like Schmidt hammer test & UV Pulse velocity test. The specimens were then subjected to compressive strength test, flexural strength test & split tensile strength test. The results were encouraging although further studies would be required. Optimum percentage of PET fibers to be added in the concrete was found out to be 0.25%.