Utilization of Steel Slag as Course Aggregate

Abstract

Concrete is the third largest material consumed by human being after food and water as per WHO. Concrete plays a vital role in the design and construction of the nation’s infrastructure. Almost three quarters of the volume of concrete is composed of aggregate. These are obtained from natural rocks and river beds, thus degradation them slowly. This issue of environment degradation, and need for aggregates demands for the usage of any other alternative source. Thus, the concept of replacement of coarse aggregate with steel slag to be promising. In this study, an effort is made to use steel slag, a by-product from steel industry as replacement for coarse aggregate in concrete which is a commercial by-product of cement manufacturing process introduced by ACC cements as fine aggregate replacement. Initial optimization of materials was done with 7 days’ strength. M20 grade of concrete was used. Possible optimum replacement of slag material was found to be 50%. It was concluded that replacing about 50% of steel slag aggregates for coarse aggregate will not have any adverse effect on the strength of the concrete.