Experimental investigation on strength and durability properties of fibre reinforced concrete using red mud

Abstract

Concrete is the most utilized substance in the world next to water. The utilisation of the natural resources like lime stone for cement manufacturing, river sand for fine aggregates, quarrying for coarse aggregates results in a huge manmade disaster like climate change. So possible alternate materials must be used in the concrete for sustainable development. The utilisation of industrial wastes in developing countries like India was a huge concern because of the shortage of lands for its disposal. Waste disposal also brings water, land and air pollution. The construction industry uses large quantities of industrial by-products and wastes, which can be used as a partial substitute for cement or aggregates. The main focus is to improve the performance of concrete by increasing the efficiency and also by developing a product more economically. newlineCement is an important ingredient which helps to strengthen the concrete matrix by its binding properties. Many replacement materials such as fly ash, slag, silica fumes were experimentally investigated, and the performance of the concrete by adding such materials was proven. Red mud is one such material which is found suitable to replace cement partially. The concentration towards the replacement of cement is focused because, during the manufacturing process of cement, an enormous quantity of CO2 is liberated into the environment. Red mud is a by-product obtained during the extraction process of alumina from bauxite. The physical and chemical properties of red mud are found suitable to replace cement content in concrete. Since the fineness of red mud is lesser than that of cement, by replacing cement partially, the void is reduced, thereby increasing the compressive property of the concrete. This attempt is made to find out the adequacy and suitability of red mud as a cement replacement. This investigation is mainly focused on studying the effect of red mud with the newline newline