Assessment of Potential of Marble Slurry As a Mineral Admixture in Concrete

Abstract

The state of Rajasthan has around 4,000 marble mines and 1,100 marble processing units spread over 16 districts that generate five to six million tons of marble dust in the form of marble slurry during processing of marble stones. Marble slurry comes out during the process of mining and polishing of marbles in huge quantities. The heaps of this waste material are not only hazardous to health, but also acquire large land areas and remain scattered all around, spoiling the aesthetics of the entire region and have affected the tourism and industrial potential of the state of Rajasthan. The improper dumping practices thus pose a severe threat to the environment, Eco - system and health of the people. Gainful utilization of waste marble dust in various construction practices has become a topic of interest in research areas. Cement industry in all the countries around the world is facing the pressure of continuously rising demand. As there is a need to develop enormous amount of infrastructure, such as power plants, roads and ports, finding an alternative material which can replace the cement clinker is one of the best ways to meet this challenge. If the alternative material for cement is a waste, it would aid in mitigating the indiscriminate dumping of wastes and also simultaneously help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced upto a certain extent. Quite a few industrial byproducts like Fly Ash (FA), Silica Fume (SF), Blast Furnace Slag (BFS), Rice Husk Ash (RHA) have found their use as a partial replacement of cement. Also, they have been found to positively influence the properties of concrete. All these waste materials have gained a lot of attention in the recent past and have found uses as supplementary cementitious materials in the concrete industry. However, marble dust has not gained much attention which was the motivation to study the effect this material has on concrete and its properties. The present work deals with investigating the effect that marble dust has on partially replacing cement in concrete