SUITABILITY OF WASTE GLASS POWDER AS PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF CEMENT IN SANDCRETE BLOCK

Audu Isa Ibrahim Dakas¹ and Stephen Ilemona Omakoji²

^1,2Department of Building,

Faculty of Environmental Sciences,

University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria

 Email: abdullahidakas@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Waste materials, glass inclusive abound everywhere in the environment which has negative impacts on the environment. Also, the need for more and alternative building materials opens opportunities for sourcing of suitable materials. This paper investigates the suitability of Waste Glass Powder (WGP) as a cementing material to partially replace conventional Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in sandcrete block. To determine that, the particle size effect was evaluated using glass powder of sizes less than 100μm. A series of tests were conducted to determine the chemical composition of the WGP for cementitious characteristics and to study the effect of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% replacement of OPC by WGP at mix proportion of 1:6 by weight. For the purpose of compressive strength test, 45 each of 225 x 225 x 450mm hollow sandcrete block and 100 x 100 x 100mm mortar cubes were produced and tested. The results show that the compressive strength of the blocks increases with increase in the percentage replacement. Blocks produced with 10% partial replacement have strengths which vary from 2.52N/mm² at 7 days curing to 3.42N/mm² at 28 days curing, while that of 20% partial replacement have strengths which vary from 2.84N/mm2 at 7 days curing to 3.46N/mm² at 28 days curing. The control blocks (at 0% of WGP) vary from 2.29N/mm² at 7 days curing to 3.29N/mm² at 28 days curing. It is thus observed that the 28 days curing compressive strength value of 3.46N/mm² at 20% replacement satisfies BS 2028 requirement. Thus, 20% is the optimum percentage replacement of OPC with WGP. It was also observed that blocks made with 10% replacement absorb less water than the control blocks. The implication of the results is that WGP is suitable for sandcrete blocks at 20% partial replacement and for water absorption property, up to 10% replacement is suitable.