Mechanical performance of roller compacted concrete with recycled concrete aggregates

Abstract

Because the recycling of construction and demolition waste (CDW) has been deemed to be a priority, the use of a recycled aggregate has been widely demonstrated as a sustainable contribution among different materials applied in civil projects. Roller compacted concrete (RCC) applications offer technical, economic and ecological solutions in many civil construction projects. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been little research on the use of RCC with a coarse recycled aggregate that does not originate from pavement. This research evaluates the use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) from a CDW recycling plant in RCC mixtures. Four series of RCC mixtures were produced with different cement contents (110, 175, 250 and 350 kg/m³). Each series consisted of three mixtures with different RCA incorporation ratios (0%, 50% and 100%) of natural coarse aggregates, thus producing 12 RCC mixtures to evaluate the effect on the compaction, the mechanical and physical properties while highlighting a new laboratory casting method for flexural strength and drying shrinkage tests. Based on the obtained results, the use of coarse RCA in RCC production is feasible at a replacement level of 100% when using these materials in road pavement bases.

Keywords:

• recycled concrete aggregates
• roller compacted concrete
• prismatic mould casting method
• mechanical properties
• drying shrinkage

Acknowledgements

This paper has been made possible by the project “Study of the properties of Recycled Aggregates, Residues from Asphalt Pavements and Biomass Bottom Slags, to be applied in lineal infrastructures constructions”, realised through collaboration between the Sacyr Construction Company and the Area of Construction Engineering of the University of Cordoba.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Francisco Agrela http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2380-4226

Jesús Ayuso http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5812-678X

Additional information

Funding

The project is supported by the INNPACTO PROGRAM 2011 from the Ministry of Economy and Competition of the Government of Spain and the European Union by the “Operative Program of R+D+i of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)”, in Spanish: “Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)”.