Development of High Strength Concrete Using Quarry Dust as Fine Aggregate

High strength and high-performance concrete are being widely used now days all over the world. In the developed countries use of high-strength concrete in the structures today has resulted in both technical, economical advantages. In high strength concrete, it is necessary to reduce the water-cement ratio and which in general increases the cement content. To overcome low workability problems different kinds of pozzolanic mineral admixtures and super-plasticizers are used to achieve the required workability. At the same time decrease of ingredient concrete and their cost are increasing day by day demanding the promotion of utilization of suitable waste materials as an alternative. Particularly substitute to conventional sand in concrete are given prime importance due to many social-economical and budget-oriented problems. The present work deals with the development of quarry dust concrete with total replacement of conventional sand with quarry dust and the study is made with systematic views with sequential steps. The suitability of quarry dust as alternative materials for the river sand in concrete manufacturing is studied. The grade of concrete is M25 or M30 was prepared with 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% partial replacement of sand with quarry dust. The physical properties of quarry dust namely specific gravity; water absorption; silt content; and fineness modulus were measured using standard tests. This was followed by compression, split tensile, and bending tests on cubes, cylinders, and RC beams respectively to study the strength of concrete made of quarry rock dust. The results were compared with conventional concrete (0%). The results showed that with an increasing proportion of quarry dust, the strength increased to a peak value (at 40%) followed by a subsequent drop in strength and a decreased workability.