Use of Coconut Shell as Coarse Aggregate in Lightweight Concrete

Use of Coconut Shell as Coarse Aggregate in Lightweight Concrete

Chapter One

AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

This research aims to investigate the use of coconut shell as coarse aggregate in concrete, through:

Characterization of the materials used for the work
Experimental determination of the mechanical properties of the concrete.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION

The growing concern of resource depletion and global pollution has challenged many engineers to seek and develop new materials relying on renewable resources (Teo et. al, 2006). These include the use of by-products and waste materials in building construction. In developing countries where abundant agricultural and industrial wastes are discharged, these wastes can be used as potential material or replacement material in the construction industry. This will have the double advantage of reduction in the cost of construction material and also as a means of disposal of wastes. Many of these by-products are used as aggregate for the production of concrete. Although, there has been much research conducted on the structural performance of normal stone aggregate concrete, these are mostly confined to naturally occurring aggregates, manufactured aggregates, and aggregates from industrial by-products. Coarse aggregate in concrete production will continue to play a significant role as a construction material in long time to come.

Mehta (2001) reported that ordinary concrete typically contains about 12% cement and 80% aggregate by mass. This means that globally for concrete making sand, gravel and crushed stone are being consumed at the rate of 10 to 11 billion tons every year. He further said that the mining, processing, and the transportation operations involving such large quantities of aggregates consume considerable amounts of energy and adversely affects the ecology of forested areas and river beds. This large amount of energy consumption in aggregate production contributes to the global loading of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and subsequently the green house effect. Therefore, the use of alternative materials to normal aggregate in concrete is of paramount importance. Hence the agricultural and industrial wastes which constitutes nuisances both to our health and environment can be converted into useful materials by either burning them into ashes, converting them from the original state and used in various proportions with cement, and thus reduce the cost for concrete works (Elinwa, 2003).

Gambhir (2005) stated that the forms in which waste materials are used are wide and varied, they may be used as binder material and as partial replacement of conventional Portland Cement.

Tay (1990) and Toress et. al (1999) also reported that waste materials generated from industrial and agricultural activities can be recycled into new building materials, because they reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission and used less energy consumption in processing or they can be used directly as aggregate in their natural or processed states.

Payam et. al, (2010) observed that to build environmentally sustainable structures, especially in developing countries, the possibility of using some agricultural wastes and industrial by- products from different industries as construction materials will be highly desirable and has several practical and economical advantages.

Delsye et. al (2006) reported that exploitation of waste material from agricultural source lead to sustainable building material in construction industry which will help in preserving the natural resources and also helps maintain ecological balance.

Gambir (2005) Classified waste materials into three categories.

Organic wastes (agro wastes)
Inorganic wastes (urban waste)

Industrial

The focus of this Dissertation is organic waste material from the agricultural origin.

The waste materials categorized as organic wastes are of plant origin, namely wood saw dust, coconut pitch, coconut shell, palm kernel shell, rice husk, wheat husk, groundnut husk, plant fibre, etc. It must be appreciated that development of concrete using coconut shell as aggregates is still in early stages and published data are limited. Gambhir ( 2005) suggested that before using organic wastes on a large scale as constituents in concrete, careful investigations regarding their properties and durability need to be carried out.

Madakson et. al (2012) worked on characterization of coconut shell ash for potential utilization in metal matrix composites for automobile applications. Their research centered on the identification of characteristic of coconut shell ash using spectroscopic and microscopic analysis, density, and particles size, refractories SEM, XRD, and FHR spectroscopic methods were used for the characterization of the coconut shell ash. The result shows that the coconut shell ash possesses nearly same chemical phases and other functional groups as reinforcement bagasse ash that has been in metal matrix composites specifically for automobile application. They concluded that coconut shell ash can be used as a low cost reinforcement in metal matrix composites.

Faisal et. al (2011) researched on the “effect of maleic anhydride polypropylene on the properties of coconut shell filled thermoplastic elastometric Olafin composites”. They described coconut shell as an agro wastes material which has high natural liqno cellulosics content. This they said provides a potential resource as reinforcement agent in thermoplastic elastometric Olafin. The effect of coconut shell loading and maleic anhydride poly propylene as compatibilizer on mechanical properties, morphology and thermal properties were studied and the results show that the increases of coconut shell loading has increased the tensile strength, elongation at break and young modulus of thermoplastic elastometric Olafin/coconut shell composites.

George and Vinaya (2002) published a report on “Phito acoustic evaluation of the thermal diffusivity of coconut shell” using laser induced photo acoustic technique. It was found that laser induced heating of the coconut shell results in a thermo elastic bending of the sample. However, taking into account this effect, an appropriate modification of Rosencwaig-Gersho theory for the photo elastic effect was made, for the calculation of thermal diffusivity. The final investigation shows that coconut shell possesses a larger thermal diffusivity than ordinary wood.

CHAPTER THREE

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This chapter outlined the tests and results of experiments performed on the materials used in this work. The materials are ordinary Portland cement, river sand as fine aggregate, stone crushed aggregate and coconut shell aggregate.

Material tests

The tests carried out on these materials are presented below.

Cement: Ordinary portland cement

The physical as well as the chemical properties tests were carried out in accordance to Nigerian Industrial standard: NIS 11(1974); NIS 445(2003); NIS 446(2003); NIS 447(2003) and British standards, BS 4550 (1978) and BS 12 (1991) and EN 196-1: 1995 on dangote manufactured Portland cement used in this investigation. The chemical analysis test of the cement was done in Department of Chemistry Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. The results are summarized below in tables 3.1 to 3.3. Table 3.1 shows the physical test results of dangote Portland cement used in accordance with BS 4550, Part 3, section 3.1, 1978. The Dangote Portland cement conformed with the standards.

Experiments

Soundness of cement paste;

The soundness test for the brand of ordinary Portland cement used was conducted using the „Le Chatelier‟ method of measuring expansion in accordance to NIS 447(2003) and BS 4550 (1978). The results of the soundness tests are presented in table 3.1.

CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Following the tests carried out in chapter three and the result presented, this chapter analyses and discusses the result to arrive at a reasonable conclusion recommendation.

Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) Test

Cement Soundness

The test results are presented in table 3.1 of Chapter 3 and compared with standard specification as shown below in Table 4.1

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

CONCLUSION

The study of the properties of coconut shell aggregate concrete has been carried out through experimentations, analysis and discussions of the suitability of coconut shell aggregate.

Therefore from the experimental results coconut shell has good potential as coarse aggregate in lightweight concrete as well as a partial replacement of conventional coarse aggregate in concrete. Therefore, based on investigation the following conclusion can be drawn:

The compressive strength of the coconut aggregate concrete shows sensitivity to the size of coco nut aggregate used. The concrete cubes produced from 16mm aggregate sizegave high compressive strength compared with that of 10mm and 12mm
The compressive strength of coconut shell aggregate concrete at 28 day test was 16N/mm²which satisfied the requirement of lightweight

The coconut shell aggregate concrete has a density ranging from 1542 Kg/m³to 1782Kg/m³ which is within the lightweight concrete density as shown Appendix XI

In all cases the density of the concrete produced decreased with increase in the percentage replacement of conventional coarse aggregate with coconut shell aggregate as shown in Appendix XI.(e, f, g, h andj)
Concrete with 25% to 50% coconut shell inclusion can still give the minimum 28-day cube strength values of 23N/mm²and 20 N/mm² expected for concrete mix 1:2:4 respectively.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the scope and the results of this research the following are the recommendation for further investigation.

A study of the shrinkage characteristics of Coconut shell concrete is
A long term durability study of Coconut shell concrete should be

There is the need to study the permeability of coconut shell

The study of the development of the micro structure of the coconut shell concreteis important in predicting the long term
The use of coconut shell aggregate as a replacement in convectional concreteshould be encourage in the locality where it is in abundance to enhance environmental cleanliness.

REFERENCES

Abdullahi (2003). The use of Rice Husk Ash in Low-cost Sandcrete Block Production, UnpublishedM. Eng. Thesis, Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria.
Abdul Awal, A.S.M., and Hussin, W. (1996).Properties of Fresh and HardenedConcrete containing Palm Oil Fuel ash. Proceeding 3^rd Asia-Pacific Conference on Structures Engineering and Construction (ASPEC ‟96) pp. 359-367.
American Concrete Institute Committee 201 (1977). Guide to durable concrete, Detroit, Michigan.Author
American Concrete Institute Committee 232 (1994), ACI 116R, ACI Materials Journal, July-August, pp 411.
Adewuyi A. P. and B. F. Ola (2003). Application of Water works stage aspartial Replacement for cement in concrete Science Focus Journal, 10 (1) 123-130.
AmericanStandard for Testing and Materials (1994). Standard Specification for Coal Fly Ash and Raw or Calcined Natural Pozzolan for Use in Concrete, ASTM C 618-94. Author
Ahmad, S.F., and Shaikh, Z. (1992). Portland-Pozzolana cement from sugarcane bagasse ash, In Neville, H. (Ed.) Lime and Other Alternative Cements (pp 172-313). Stafford Holmes and David Mather, London

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