STRENGTH CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTIALLY REPLACED FINE AGGREGATE WITH LATERITE IN CONCRETE PRODUCTION

Abstract

Sustainability development has become a strategy for the building industry, and it is widely acknowledged that searching for innovative, creative, and eco-friendly materials is worthwhile. Because concrete is used so often in civil engineering applications, there is a greater need for concrete ingredients. Because it is so scarce, sand is an expensive but essential component of concrete. The absence of components has led to many searches and studies looking into using laterite soil instead of sand as fine aggregate. This work conducted an experimental investigation of the strength characteristics of lateritic concrete; the laterite used is classified as low plasticity clay (CL) in the Unified Soil Classification System (AASHTO soil classification A-7-6 (10)). This laterite has kaolinite as its predominant clay mineral and is located in zone four of the gradation, which is characterized by fine laterite. As part of the experiment, 36 cubes will be fabricated, and their compressive strength will be evaluated. According to tests, lateritic concrete cubes had a 28-day compressive strength of 25.29N/mm², 28.15N/mm², and 20.00N/mm² for 10%, 20%, and 30% replacement, compared to 30.23N/mm² for concrete cubes. The results of this study showed that lateritic concrete behaves similarly to regular concrete; there aren't many differences between the two types of concrete in terms of their physical characteristics. Conversely, compared to the lateritic materials, the concrete materials displayed superior strength characteristics. Even though lateritic concrete has varying strengths, it is nevertheless perfectly suitable for structural grade concrete.

Keywords: Compressive strength, curing age, Structural grade concrete, lateritic concrete.