Concrete made with waste marble powder and supplementary cementitious material for sustainable development

Abstract

The present study examines the feasibility of using marble powder in a better way with the use of supplementary cementitious materials. Sand was partially replaced with marble powder up to 15% and cement was partially replaced with the supplementary cementitious material in nine variant concrete mixtures. Two supplementary cementitious materials, silica fume, and metakaolin were added to enhance the pozzolanic activity in the concrete mixtures for maximum utilization of marble powder. To assess various properties of concrete made with marble powder and supplementary cementitious materials, tests like compressive strength, split tensile strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity, carbonation, and microstructure analysis were conducted. Moreover, marble powder was used as a partial substitution for cement in preparation of blended cement pastes. Soundness characteristics and setting behavior were determined on blended cement pastes. The result shows durability properties of concrete on replacement of 15% sand with marble powder were enhanced with the use of supplementary cementitious materials such as metakaolin and silica fume but metakaolin proved to be more effective relative to silica fume. No adverse effect was observed on the expansion and setting behavior of cement paste due to the replacement of cement with marble powder.