USE OF UNSEIVED STONE DUST AS FINE AGGREGATE IN MORTAR

Experimental investigation was carried out to study the feasibility of unseived stone dust (a product obtained from crushing of granite) as fine aggregate in place of river sand in making cement mortar 1:3, 1:4, 1:5 and 1:6, which are the mixes usually adopted in various construction activities. The results obtained are comparable with the conventional mortar. It is concluded that the compressive strength at 28 days of unseived stone dust used as fine aggregate in mortar gives 5% higher strength for the ratio of 1:4, 1:5, and 1:6, where as 5% less than the conventional mortar for the ratio 1:3. Therefore the unseived stone dust in raw form can be confidently used as a good construction material in making mortar and that a maximum of 10-13% of fine materials i.e less than 150 micron in the unseived Stone dust may not affect the strength of the mortar.