Innovative and Eco-Friendly Concrete Forming Sustainable and Resilient Structures Using Waste Marble Powder

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

In recent years, India has witnessed a remarkable and swift growth in the use of concrete and with this the carbon footprints have skyrocketed resulting in global warming. The carbon footprints generated by concrete manufacturing can be minimized by incorporating waste materials and one such material which can be utilized is waste marble powder (WMP). The marble manufacturing industry generates an enormous quantity of waste during sawing and cutting, leading to an adverse influence on the environment. This possesses an environmental requirement to recycle this waste. Our study deduced that concrete can be made more sustainable and durable, achieving reduction in carbon content, if waste marble powder is substituted for fine aggregates. From an environmental perspective, this development is beneficial since it will marginalize sand extraction from the river beds at a large-scale as this factor leads to detrimental effects on our ecosystem. We aimed to incorporate WMP into concrete at distinct proportions and partially replace fine aggregate with WMP. In the experiments, both destructive and non-destructive techniques were used. The water-to-cement ratio was maintained at 0.45 while four different concrete mixtures were tested at weight ratios of 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%. When fine aggregate is substituted with WMP at a weight ratio of 40%, the best outcome is achieved, enhancing concrete's inherent properties. The compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength test results have all improved by 35%, 17.5%, and 27%, respectively after curing period of 365 days. Rebound hammer test obtained maximum value of 42.72 N/mm2, an increment of 15%; ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) demonstrated a gain of 3% at 40% replacement ratio; rate of water absorption decreases by 46% for cubes, 40% for cylinders and 36% for beams.