Suitability of Crushed Glass Wastes as Fine Aggregates in Concrete Production

The usage of industrial wastes such as crushed glass wastes as construction materials will not only help to reduce the cost of construction, but significantly helps in the management of such wastes. Waste bottles where obtained from a dumpsite at Yenagoa, Nigeria, washed, dried and crushed to smaller particle sizes passing the 1.18 mm sieve size. Some of the preliminary tests done on the crushed glass wastes (CGW) include specific gravity, sieve analysis, density, water absorption. Also, workability, compressive, tensile, and flexural strengths tests were also done on the fresh and hardened concrete prepared with 5 to 25% of CGW in steps of 5 as substitutes for river sand. The workability increased with increase in CWG content. The compressive, tensile and flexural strengths were 31.33 N/mm2, 2.50 N/mm2, 8.0 N/mm2 at 10% CGW after 28 days of curing. Hence, 10% of CWG replacement for river sand in concrete was sufficient to give the designed strength. Therefore, CGW can be suitably used as a replacement material for fine aggregates without compromising the concrete strength