25 American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) ISSN (Print) 2313-4410, ISSN (Online) 2313-4402 © Global Society of Scientific Research and Researchers http://asrjetsjournal.org/ Suitability of Soil Washed Sand as Fine Aggregates to Replace River Sand in the Concrete Navin Kalharaa, Asoka Pererab, Anushka Perera c*, Nilupul Lankathilake d, Thilini Ranasinghee, a,b,c,d,eDepartment of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Malabe 10115 a Email: navinkalhara@rocketmail.com b Email: ashoka.uom@gmail.com c Email: anushkaminipro@gmail.com d Email: nilupul.lanka@gmail.com e Email: tchanuka@gmail.com Abstract This paper presents a study on suitability of replacing river sand with soil washed sand as fine aggregate in concrete. The study was based on a comparison of concrete performance produced from river sand and soil washed sand obtained from four locations in Sri Lanka; Homagama, Rathnapura, Anuradhapura and Bandarawela. Several standard tests including Sieve analysis, Slump test and Compressive strength were conducted in order to check the workability, particle size distribution and compressive strength of M25 grade concrete. From the test results, it was found that percentages of coarse sand, medium sand and fine sand present in soil washed sand are higher than that of river sand, while highly coarse sand percentage was higher for the soil samples extracted from Rathnapura and Bandarawela areas compared to river sand. Slump test results showed that the concrete produced from river sand has a lower slump value compared to that of concrete produced from soil washed sand, suggesting that washed soil sand could possess higher workability. Test results showed that specimen cubes have achieved the target strength of M25 grade concrete even though compressive strength of concrete produced from soil washed sand was about 10% lesser compared that of river sand at 7 days, 14 days and 28 days’ strength. Keywords: Fine aggregates; washed soil; concrete. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Corresponding author. http://asrjetsjournal.org/ mailto:ashoka.uom@gmail.com American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 26 1. Introduction Quality of construction is one of the most important aspect considered in construction industry. Sand is one of the dominant component in concrete production, which is around 35 % by volume of the concrete [1-3]. River sand is widely used as fine aggregates in concrete production and over usage of river sand has resulted in many harmful effects such as lowering of water table in rivers, salinity intrusion into rivers and increase in river bed depth [4–6]. These Environmental issues have forced researchers to study on alternatives for river sand such as fly ash, slag and limestone powder [7,8]. According to previous studies, researchers have studied on potential alternatives for river sand to use as fine aggregates in the concrete production. The authors in [6] have studied on the use of off shore sand as a fine aggregate for the concrete production. Their findings revealed that the concrete produced with off shore sand has its compressive strength within acceptable limits and other properties suitable for the concrete production. Thus, they concluded that off shore sand obtained from western coast of Sri Lanka can be used as an alternative to the river sand. The author in [5] investigated the suitability of Crushed granite fine (CGF) to replace river sand in concrete production. He performed slump test, compressive and indirect tensile strength tests for fresh and hardened concrete as methods of studying the performance of CGF based concrete. Based on the findings, he revealed that the CGF is suitable for production of concrete. The authors in [9] have studied on the effect of replacing natural sand with quarry dust on mechanical properties using M30 grade concrete with 10, 20 and 30 % of quarry dust as a replacement for natural sand. They found that physical and chemical properties of the quarry dust have satisfied the requirements in the standards. Furthermore, The authors in [10] have studied on strength of concrete made with quarry rock dust and washed gravel. They revealed that above materials can be used as a full replacement for conventional granite and natural river sand, although the aggregate/ cement ratio was found to be lower compared to conventional concrete. Apart from these, The authors in [11–16] have carried out their studies on finding the suitability of alternatives such as crushed discarded beverage glass, sea sand, robosand, quarry dust, copper slag and washed copper slag, and crushed cow bones to replace the use of river sand in the concrete production. However, there is a dearth of literature on studies to find the suitability of using washed soil as a partial or full replacement for river sand as the fine aggregates in concrete production. Thus, there is a knowledge gap related to performance of washed soil as a fine aggregate in concrete in terms of strength, workability and durability. The objective of this study is to find the performance of washed soil in terms of compressive strength, workability and particle size distribution to replace river sand as fine aggregates in concrete production. Thus, to find solution for scarcity of river sand and environmental concerns arising over this scarcity in river sand. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Study area For this study, soil samples were collected from four different locations in Sri Lanka. They are Anuradhapura, located in North-central province, Rathnapura, located in Sabaragamuwa province, Bandarawela, located in Uva province, and Homagama, located in Western province. These sampling locations are shown in the map given in American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 27 2.2. Materials Ordinary Portland cement and water conforming to BS EN 197-1:2000 and BS EN 1008 respectively were used to prepare the concrete mix. Crushed coarse aggregates of size 10mm and 20mm were used. For the fine aggregates, river sand and soil washed sand obtained from washing plants were used. 2.3. Mix design For this study, M25 grade concrete was produced using following mix design to investigate the impact of using soil washed sand for the concrete production. The control mixture was designed to have a 28-day target compressive strength of 25 N/mm2 with a water cement ratio of 0.52 [18–20]. Table 1 shows the mix proportions of the materials used after computation. Table 1: Mix proportions and ratios for M25 concrete. Material Cement Fine aggregates Coarse aggregates Water Quantity (kg/m3) 368.42 741.39 1192.42 191.58 Ratio 1 2.01 3.23 0.5 2.4. Sieve analysis test Prior to casting of concrete, all the collected samples were tested for sieve analysis to identify the gradation of samples. It determines the required paste for workable concrete since the amount of void requires to be filled by the same amount of cement pastes in a concrete mixture. Sieve analysis was carried out in compliance with the standards provided in the BS 812. 2.5. Slump test Figure 1 : Locations of collected samples. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 28 Slump test was used to compare the workability of fresh concrete produced from soil washed sand against that of river sand. Slump tests were carried out for each of the six concrete mixtures produced for different sampling locations. The slump test was carried out accordance with BS EN12350-2: [21,22]. 2.6. Preparation and casting of test specimens Forty-five cubes were used, where nine sample cubes of size 150 × 150 × 150 mm were casted for each of the sand samples. These prepared cubes specimens were cured for specific period prior to compressive strength test at 7, 14 and 28 days. 2.7. Compressive strength test Most important aspect of concrete is the ability to withstand the compressive loads, which is known as compressive strength. Compressive strength test is one of the most common methods used to determine the compressive strength of the concrete. That is the application of a load at a constant rate on a cube sized 150 × 150 × 150 mm until the failure of the sample specimen. During this study, compressive strength test was carried out in compliance to BS 1881-108: 1983. Compression testing apparatus was used to determine the strength at 7, 14 and 28 days using Equation (1) where 𝑓𝑓𝑐𝑐 is the compressive strength of concrete, P is the maximum load applied (kN) and A is the cross sectional areas of the sample (mm2) [23–26]. 𝑓𝑓𝑐𝑐 = 𝑃𝑃 𝐴𝐴 (1) 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Particle size distribution The following test results given in Figure 2 were obtained from the sieve analysis experiment carried out for the soil samples obtained from Anuradhapura, Rathnapura, Bandarawela and Homagama compared to river sand sample. According to the particle size distribution curve and BS812: Part 103 standards, collected samples from all four areas belonged to C graded fine aggregates and river sand also belongs to grade C fine aggregates [27]. Figure 2: Particle size distribution curve 0 50 100 0.0100.1001.00010.000 Pe rc en ta ge p as sin g Particle size in mm Rathnapura Homagama Anuradhapura Bandarawela River sand American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 29 However, it can be observed that the highly coarse sand percentage in soil samples collected from Rathnapura and Bandarawela is higher than that of river sand tested, while Homagama and Anuradhapura samples possess lower percentages of highly coarse sand. Nevertheless, percentages of coarse sand, medium sand and fine sand for the all samples are higher than that of river sand as per the grading chart [28]. 3.2. Slump test The Table 2 shows the obtained results for the slump test for the test samples. Table 2: Slump test results Sample Test 1 (mm) Test 2 (mm) Test 3 (mm) Average (mm) River Sand 65 69 70 68 Homagama 85 87 84 85.33 Anuradhapura 76 77 78 77 Rathnapura 78 75 80 77.67 Bandarawela 70 72 74 72 According to the results shown in Table 2, it can be observed that workability of concrete produced from washed soil sand is comparatively higher to that of concrete produced from river sand. However, this observation could be due to higher water requirement for river sand to lubricate its sand particles. Thus, it could result in higher slump values for concrete produced from soil washed sand [29]. 3.3. Compressive strength Nine cubes casted for each of the concrete batch produced from different sand samples were tested for the compressive strength test at 7 days, 14 days and 28 days. Test results for variation of strength are given in the Table 3, Table 4 and Table 5, and Figure 3 illustrates the average strength for the compared sand types. Table 3: 7 day cube strength test results Sand type Compression force at failure (kN) Average Cube 01 Cube 02 Cube 03 Force (kN) Strength (kN/m2 ) River Sand 446.55 469.80 537.99 484.78 21.546 Homagama 476.33 428.02 408.76 437.71 19.495 Anuradhapura 467.69 435.62 425.94 443.08 19.693 Rathnapura 459.05 443.22 443.12 448.46 19.931 Bandarawela 463.37 439.42 434.53 445.78 19.812 American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 30 Table 4: 14 day cube strength test results Sand type Compression force at failure (kN) Average Cube 01 Cube 02 Cube 03 Force (kN) Strength (kN/m2 ) River Sand 618.30 650.50 744.92 671.24 29.833 Homagama 659.54 592.65 565.98 606.06 26.994 Anuradhapura 647.58 603.17 589.77 613.50 27.267 Rathnapura 635.62 613.69 613.56 620.96 27.598 Bandarawela 641.60 608.44 601.67 617.24 27.433 Table 5: 28 day cube strength test results Sand type Compression force at failure (kN) Average Cube 01 Cube 02 Cube 03 Force (kN) Strength (kN/m2 ) River Sand 687.00 722.78 827.69 745.82 33.148 Homagama 732.82 658.50 628.87 673.40 29.993 Anuradhapura 719.53 670.19 655.30 681.67 30.297 Rathnapura 706.24 681.88 681.73 689.95 30.664 Bandarawela 712.89 676.04 668.52 685.82 30.481 Figure 3: Average compressive strength As per Figure 3, similar pattern can be observed for 7 days, 14 days and 28 days’ compressive strength of the concrete produced. Whereas, from the charts it is clear that with 14 days’ time concrete cubes has attained more 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 River Sand Homagama Anuradhapura Rathnapura Bandarawela Co m pr es siv e st re ng th (k N /m 2) Sand type 7 days 14 days 28 days American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 31 than 90 % of the specified cube strength of M25 grade concrete. However, results clearly show that washed soil sand has a lower compressive strength compared to that of concrete produced from river sand. That is average compressive strengths of concrete produced from soil washed sand are 9.52 %, 9.51 % and 9.91 % lower to compressive strength of concrete casted from river sand at 7 days, 14 days and 28 days respectively. However, compressive strength of concrete produced from sand obtained from soil collected from four sampling locations showed similar values at all three tests with slightly lower values were observed for samples collected from Homagama and highest test results were shown for Rathnapura soil samples. Nevertheless, it can be seen that the concrete produced from washed soil sand reaches grade specified strength with time as river sand based concrete. 4. Conclusions and future recommendations Based on these results, it is conclusive that percentages of coarse sand, medium sand and fine sand present in soil washed sand are higher than that of river sand. Furthermore, from the test results of slump test, it is certain that workability of concrete produced is slightly greater than the workability of concrete produced from river sand. Test results showed that specimen cubes have achieved the target strength of M25 grade concrete despite the compressive strength of the concrete produced from soil washed sand was found to be about 10% lower to that of concrete produced from river sand. Thus, further studies are required to promote the use of soil washed sand as a full replacement of river sand as fine aggregates in concrete. Future studies are recommended to carry out to find the suitability of partial replacement of soil washed sand for river sand. In addition, more test parameters such as splitting tensile strength, chemical properties and factors affecting the durability are proposed to study in future literature as this study was only based on workability, particle distribution and compressive strength. In future studies, proper economic feasibility studies can be done to find the financial, social and environmental advantages of replacing river sand with soil washed sand. Acknowledgement Authors would like to thank Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology for the financial support given to carry out this research successfully. Furthermore, authors would like to thank Nishan Obeysekara for the support given in concrete testing. References [1] C. N. Rajapaksha and H. P. Sooriyaarachchi, “Feasibility of Quarry Dust to Replace River Sand as Fine Aggregate of Concrete,” Engineer, vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 30–37, 2009. [2] R. Mahendran, K. Godwin, T. G. Selvan, and M. Murugan, “Experimental Study on Concrete Using Sea Sand,” Int. J. Sci. Eng. Res., vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 49–52, 2016. [3] W. Ararsa, E. Tucay Quezon, and A. Aboneh, “Suitability of Ambo Sandstone Fine Aggregate as an Alternative River Sand Replacement in Normal Concrete Production,” Am. J. Civ. Eng. Archit., vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 140–146, 2018. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 32 [4] S. Chandrakeerthy, “Suitability of Sea Sand as a Fine Aggregate for Concrete Production,” Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka. pp. 93–114, 1994. [5] M. Joel, “Use of crushed granite fine as replacement to river sand in concrete production,” Leonardo Electron. J. Pract. Technol., vol. 9, no. 17, pp. 85–96, 2010. [6] M. G. S. Dias, D. a R. Dolage, and C. T. Ariyawansa, “Offshore Sand as a Fine Aggregate for Concrete Production,” Br. J. Appl. Sci. Technol., vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 813–825, 2013. [7] R. Siddique, “Effect of fine aggregate replacement with Class F fly ash on the abrasion resistance of concrete.,” Cem. Concr. Res., vol. 33, pp. 1877–1881, 2003. [8] N. Ganesh, G. Banakar, K. L. Harish, N. P. Kattekar, and S. P. Hadadi, “Effect of Artificial Fine Aggregate and Natural Fine Aggregate Available in Haveri District on Strength of Concrete,” Int. J. Eng. Sci. Comput., vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 12056–12060, 2017. [9] A. Patanwadia and H. Solanki, “Effect of replacement of natural sand by manufactured sand on the properties of cement mortar,” Int. J. Eng. Technol. Sci. Res., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 169–176, 2013. [10] M. Ephraim and Rowland-Lato, “Compressive Strength of Concrete Made with Quarry Rock Dust and Washed 10mm Washed Gravel as Aggregates,” Am. J. Eng. Technol. Soc. Am. J. Eng. Technol. Soc., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 26–34, 2015. [11] K. Subramanian and A. Kannan, “An Experimental Study On Usage Of Quarry Dust As Partial Replacement For Sand In Concrete And Mortar,” Aust. J. Basic Appl. Sci., vol. 7, no. 8, pp. 955–967, 2013. [12] C.-Q. Lye, S.-K. Koh, R. Mangabhai, and R. K. Dhir, “Use of copper slag and washed copper slag as sand in concrete: a state-of-the-art review,” Mag. Concr. Res., vol. 67, no. 12, pp. 665–679, 2015. [13] R. S. Jose and K. B. Prakash, “an Experimental Investigation on the Properties of Concrete Containing Ternary Blends,” Int. Res. J. Eng. Technol., vol. 4, no. 9, pp. 1–10, 2017. [14] N. M. Ogarekpe et al., “Suitability of burnt and crushed cow bones as partial replacement for fine aggregate in concrete,” Niger. J. Technol., vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 686–690, 2017. [15] G. P. Sheng, H. Q. Yu, and X. Y. Li, “Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) of microbial aggregates in biological wastewater treatment systems: A review,” Biotechnol. Adv., vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 882–894, 2010. [16] K. Bisht and P. V. Ramana, “Sustainable production of concrete containing discarded beverage glass as fine aggregate,” Constr. Build. Mater., vol. 177, pp. 116–124, 2018. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS) (2018) Volume 46, No 1, pp 25-33 33 [17] J. Xiao, C. Qiang, A. Nanni, and K. Zhang, “Use of sea-sand and seawater in concrete construction: Current status and future opportunities,” Constr. Build. Mater., vol. 155, pp. 1101–1111, 2017. [18] R. R. Chavan and D. B. Kulkarni, “Performance of Copper Slag on Strength Properties As Partial Replace of Fine Aggregate in Concrete Mix Design,” Int. J. Adv. Eng. Res. Stud. Int. J. Adv. Engg. Res. Stud. /II/IV, pp. 95–98, 2013. [19] S. V Patankar, “Mix Design of Fly Ash Based Geopolymer Concrete,” Adv. Struct. Eng., no. April, 2014. [20] N. Raj, S. G Patil, and B. Bhattacharjee, “Concrete Mix Design By Packing Density Method,” IOSR J. Mech. Civ. Eng., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 34–46, 2014. [21] A. D. de Figueiredo and M. R. Ceccato, “Workability Analysis of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Using Slump and Ve-Be Test,” Mater. Res., vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 1284–1290, 2015. [22] H. Pradesh, V. Thakur, and H. Pradesh, “Experiment study on the use of varying percentage of silica fume with cement and natural aggregate with recycled coarse aggregate in concrete,” Int. J. Adv. Res. Ideas Innov. Technol., vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 1874–1880, 2018. [23] J. Morel and P. Walker, “Compressive strength testing of compressed earth blocks,” Constr. Build. Mater., no. February, 2007. [24] D. Prayogo, M. Cheng, J. Widjaja, H. Ongkowijoyo, and H. Prayogo, “Prediction of Concrete Compressive Strength from Early Age Test Result Using an Advanced Metaheuristic-Based Machine Learning Technique,” in 34th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (ISARC 2017) Prediction, 2017. [25] R. A. C. J. Seneviratne, G. Tharmarajah, and P. Archbold, “Use of Natural Fibres to Enhance Tensile Strength of Concrete,” in 2nd International Conference on Bio-based Building Materials & 1st Conference on ECOlogical valorisation of GRAnular and FIbrous materials, 2017. [26] R. A. C. J. Seneviratne and G. Tharmarajah, “Experimental Study on Addition of Pine Fibers to High Strength Concrete,” in 5th International Symposium on Advances in Civil and Environmental Engineering Practises for Sustainable Development (ACEPS-2017), 2017, no. April. [27] K. W. Day, J. Aldred, and B. Hudson, “Construction standard - Aggregates for concrete,” 2013. [28] N. P. Chotiros, Acoustics of the Seabed as a Poroelastic Medium. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. [29] S. M. A. Nanayakkara, “Alternatives for River Sand,” in IABSE Symposium, 1999, pp. 120–125.