MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF CONCRETE CONTAINING RECYCLED STEEL FIBRES (BM-036)

Lack of knowledge to properly dispose or to turn used tyres into useful recycled materials may become hazardous to the environment. A study by Economic Planning Unit (EPU) and Danish International Development Agency (Danida) in 2003 reported 19.7 millions or 157,000 tonnes tyres were junk by us annually. Two years later, it has been reported an increasing to 180,000 tonnes tyres are tossed per year or 500 tonnes per day. Therefore, innovative and creative technique to properly dispose used tyres is very important and also to encourage public on the development of new market for used tyres. Initiative has been taken by researchers at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia to use steel fibres recovered by tyre recycling process in concrete mixtures. The mechanical properties of recycled steel fibres (RSFs) was determined which include its diameter, and tensile strength while the length is fixed to 60±5 mm. Furthermore, these RSFs were added in the concrete mixture and tested for cube compressive strength (fcu), tensile splitting strength (fct), and flexural strength (fcf). The volume of RSFs were 0 % (as control batch), 0.3%, and 0.7%. The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of recycled steel fibre on the properties of concrete in comparison with plain concrete. The usage of recycled steel fibre in concrete has shown satisfactory results on the improvement of its mechanical properties. Besides, the successful on using recycled steel fibre in concrete later not only develop new market on used tyres but also contribute to the sustainable development of building construction