EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON CONCRETE BY PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF FINE AGGREGATE BY USING ECO SAND AND FOUNDARY SAND

Throughout the world, concrete is being widely used for the construction of most of the buildings, bridges etc. Hence, it has been properly labeled as the backbone to the infrastructure development of a nation. Currently, our country is taking major initiatives to improve and develop its infrastructure by constructing express highways, power projects and industrial structures to emerge as a major economic power and it has been estimated that the infrastructure segment in our country is expected to see investments to the tune of Rs.4356 billion by the year2015. To meet out this rapid infrastructure development a huge quantity of concrete is required. Unfortunately, India is not having suf icient sources of sand. The main ingredient of concrete and the demand for exceeds the supply and make the construction activities very costlier. Hence, currently, the entire construction industry is in search of a suitable and effective the waste product that would considerably minimize the use of sand and ultimately reduce the construction cost. Nature common river sand is expensive due to excessive cost of transportation from natural sources. Also large scale depletion of these sources creates environment problems and other constrains which make the availability and use of river sand less attractive. Therefore in order to overcome this drawback, a substitute for sand needs to be found out. Eco-sand and foundry sand is such product attempted in this project Metal foundries use large amounts of the metal casting process. Foundries successfully recycle and reuse the sand many times in a foundry and the remaining sand that is termed as foundry sand is removed from foundry. Foundry sand consists preliminary of silica sand, coated with a thin film of burnt carbon, residual binder and dust. Foundry sand can be used in concrete to improve its strength and other durability factors. Foundry sand can be used as a partial replacement of sand. At various percentages of (25%, 30% & 35 %) levels for making M25 grade mixes. Eco-sand an abundantly available waste product from cement plant profusely exists as a by-product in ACC cement and at Madukkarai, Coimbatore. As a part of resolving its disposal problems and a solution to the dif iculty of requirement and high rate of sand, Eco-sand and can be ef ectively used for it's extremely low cost. The objective of the present investigation is to evaluate the possibilities of improving the performance of concrete by using Eco-sand as a partial replacement of natural river sand at various percentages of (25%, 30% & 35 %) levels for making M25 grade mixes