Effect of Use Recycled Coarse Aggregate on the Behavior of Axially Loaded Reinforced Concrete Columns

Abstract

Nowadays, the use of recycled waste construction materials instead of aggregates is becoming popular in construction owing to its environmental benefits. This paper presents an experimental and analytical campaign to study the behavior of axially loaded columns constructed from recycled aggregates. The latter was used instead of natural aggregates, and they were collected from the waste of previous concrete constructions. Different concrete mixtures made from varying amounts of recycled aggregates ranged from 0 to 50% of the total coarse aggregate were conducted to achieve 28 MPa. The effect of steel fibers is another investigated variable with volumes ranged from 0 to 2% concerning concrete’s mixture. The experimental results showed that the concrete strength is dependent on the amount of recycled aggregates. When the recycled aggregates were less than 30% of the total aggregates, they had a negligible effect on concrete strength and the load carrying capacity of the column models were improved. Also, the presence of steel fibers enhanced the load carrying capacity of the columns constructed from concrete with recycled aggregates of more than 30%. Finite element analysis (using ANSYS 16.1 software program) was conducted to simulate the experimental investigations, and they achieved good agreements with the test results.