Utilisation of Marble Waste Slurry in manufacture of concrete paving blocks

Objective
The object of our work is to recycle marble slurry waste in a way so that it could be used as a major construction material like fly ash and reduce environmental concerns and total cost of concrete paving blocks.

Introduction
Rajasthan is known for mining of minerals and marbles. Mining of marbles and its cutting generates 15-20 lacs tons of marble slurry waste which is indestructible waste and create losses to general Public. These two activities in state of Rajasthan have been extended in 20-25 years and have played important role in the economy of the state providing direct and indirect employment to lacs of people. But at the same time it is taking the shape of a major threat to the Environment in the state by mining and cutting activites like erosion of top fertile soil cover, contamination of the rivers and other water bodies there by adversely affecting irrigation and drinking water resources. Therefore its utilization in concrete paving blocks and construction materials will help in overcoming this great problem.
Photo 1: Heaps of Marble slurry in Udaipur

 Experimental procedure
In order to see the effect of marble slurry waste in concrete we sieved the marble slurry dust through 600u sieve. So that it could be used as a significant replacement of cement and sand in concrete.Marble slurry waste also incorporate some amount of water in it which is due to wetting of cutting machine, this water alters the property of marble slurry waste so we oven-dried the sample of MSW before mixing it.
The effect of the different proportions of MSW in concrete was investigated to find-

a. Workability of concrete b. Compressive and flexural strength of the concrete c. Abrasion resistance

 Strength and durability characteristics of concrete incorporating MSW

Compressive strength of cement at 7 day and 28 day were determined as per IS. Specific gravity of cement and marble dust were determined as per IS using Le Chatelier Flask. Aggregates were tested as per IS for specific gravity, density, fineness modulus etc. The cement concrete mix design was done as per IS for 350 kg/sq.cm compressive strength at 28 days for 25 mm slump. Workability of the concrete was determined by slump test. The cube (15cm x 15cm x 15cm) and beam (10cm x 10cm x 50cm) specimens prepared for various tests were cured at 90 percent humidity for 24 hours and then soaked in water for the desired periods before their testing. Mix designs were also done by incorporating 20, 30, 40 and 50 percent marble dust as partial replacement of equal volume of sand (fine aggregate) in the cement concrete mix. The slumps of these mixes were determined and cube and beam specimens were casted for the determination of concrete characteristics.

 Results
When sand was replaced by marble dust, the workability of the mixes decreased as water requirement has increased.

Concrete mixes with 20-50 per cent marble dust were again designed by increasing the water content but keeping the cement quantity per cubic meter unchanged for 25 mm slump. Cube and beam specimens were casted for strength and durability etc. of concrete so prepared.

After 24 hours humid curing, the cube and beam specimens were taken out of moulds and were soaked in water. After 7 days soaking, cube specimens from each set were tested for their compressive strength. Again, after 28 days soaking, cube and beam specimens were tested for 28 day compressive and flexural strength respectively.

The tests were conducted on 28 day soaked cube specimens from each set according to the same methods as prescribed in the IS code.

To assess the durability of concrete, cube specimens from each set after 28 day soaking were subjected to three sets of durability cycles viz. Freezing-thawing, heating-cooling.

Freezing-thawing cycle One such cycle comprised of freezing the specimen at 10C 2C for 6 hours in an environmental chamber and thawing in air at 27C 2C for 18 hours. Heating-Cooling cycle-One such cycle comprised of heating the specimen at 72C 2C for 6 hours and cooling in air at room temperature for 18 hours.

The test specimens were subjected to 30 such cycles and after that their compressive strengths were determined. The results of concrete incorporating dust show remarkable gain in strength. The 7 day compressive strength of concrete increased from 270 kg/sq. cm to 322kg/sq. cmwhen 20 percent sand was replaced by marble dust and when 40 per cent sand was replaced by dust it becomes 402 kg/sq.cm.

The28 day compressive strength rises from 363 kg/sq.cmto 403 kg/sq.cmwith 20 percent and it becomes 457 kg/sq.cm when 40 per cent sand is replaced by dust. The gain was also observed in case of flexural strength which increased from 40 kg/sq.cmto 41.9 kg/sq.cm. The results of water-cement ratio and strength of 25 mm slump concrete have been presented in Figures 7 &8respectively. The water-cement ratio have increased from- 0.53 to 0.55 when 40 percent dust was substituted for sand in the mix for 25 mm slump keeping cement content unchanged. The compressive and flexural strengths are comparable to normal concrete.

Conclusion

Hence after forming blocks and specimens and testing it according to IS rules we find that characteristics of specimens are quite similar and in some ways are better than the specimens which were not having marble slurry waste in them and due to decreased amount of cement and sand used the specimens using MSW were of lesser cost also.