Use of stone powder in concrete and mortar as an alternative of sand

Abstract

Stone powder produced from stone crushing zones appears as a problem for effective disposal. Sand is a common fine aggregate used in construction work as a fine aggregate. In this study, the main concern is to find an alternative of sand. Substitution of normal sand by stone powder will serve both solid waste minimization and waste recovery. The study focuses to determine the relative performance of concrete by using powder sand. From laboratory experiments, it was revealed that concrete made of stone powder and stone chip gained about 15% higher strength than that of the concrete made of normal sand and brick chip. Concrete of stone powder and brick chip gained about 10% higher strength than that of the concrete normal sand and stone chip concrete. The highest compressive strength of mortar found from stone powder which is 33.02 Mpa, shows that better mortar can be prepared by the stone powder. The compressive strength of concrete from stone powder shows 14.76% higher value than that of the concrete made of normal sand. On the other hand, concrete from brick chip and stone powder produce higher compressive value from that of brick chip and normal sand concrete.

Full text

African Journal of Environmental Science and Technology Vol. 5(5), pp. 381-388, May 2011
Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJEST
ISSN 1996-0786 ©2011 Academic Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Use of stone powder in concrete and mortar as an
alternative of sand
H. M. A. Mahzuz
1
*, A. A. M. Ahmed
2
and M. A. Yusuf
3
1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Shahjalal University of science and Technology, Bangladesh.
2
Department of Civil Engineering, Leading University, Sylhet, Bangladesh.
3
Civil Engineering Department, University of Information Technology and sciences, Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Accepted 6 December, 2010
Stone powder produced from stone crushing zones appears as a problem for effective disposal. Sand is
a common fine aggregate used in construction work as a fine aggregate. In this study, the main concern
is to find an alternative of sand. Substitution of normal sand by stone powder will serve both solid
waste minimization and waste recovery. The study focuses to determine the relative performance of
concrete by using powder sand. From laboratory experiments, it was revealed that concrete made of
stone powder and stone chip gained about 15% higher strength than that of the concrete made of
normal sand and brick chip. Concrete of stone powder and brick chip gained about 10% higher strength
than that of the concrete normal sand and stone chip concrete. The highest compressive strength of
mortar found from stone powder which is 33.02 Mpa, shows that better mortar can be prepared by the
stone powder. The compressive strength of concrete from stone powder shows 14.76% higher value
than that of the concrete made of normal sand. On the other hand, concrete from brick chip and stone
powder produce higher compressive value from that of brick chip and normal sand concrete.
Key words: Stone powder, concrete, mortar, concrete, compressive strength.
INTRODUCTION
Plain concrete is made by mixing cement, fine aggregate,
coarse aggregate, water and admixture (Wang and
Salmon, 1998). The economy, efficiency, durability,
moldability and rigidity of reinforced concrete make it an
attractive material for a wide range of structural
applications (Ferguson et al., 1988). Fine aggregate is
one of the important constituents that effects the strength
of concrete (Sharmin et al., 2006). The gaps of coarse
aggregate are filled by the fine aggregate and the gapes
of fine aggregate is filled by the binding materials (Aziz,
1995). According to the compressive strength, concrete
can be classified as follows: concrete having cube
compressive strength at 28 days up to 15 Mpa is low
grade concrete, between 16 to 50 Mpa is medium grade,
between 51 to 100 Mpa is high grade and beyond 100
Mpa is ultra high strength concrete (Kishore, 1995). In
addition the strength of concrete mainly depends on
*Corresponding author. E-mail: mahzuz_211@yahoo.com.
amount of water used, aggregate gradation, and
aggregate size and shape, cement quality, mixing time,
mixing ratios, curing etc (Kabir, 2006). Concrete must be
both strong and workable, a careful balance of the
cement to water ratio is required when making concrete
(Chamberlain, 1995). However, increase in strength will
be observed if angular aggregate is used in concrete than
crushed aggregate, keeping ratio of water to cement (w/c
ratio) and slump constant with the use of admixture
(Ahmed, 1996). Fine aggregate is basically sand
extracted from the land or the marine environment. Fine
aggregates generally consist of natural sand or crushed
stone with most particles passing through a 9.5 mm
sieve. For concrete sand FM range is 2.3 - 3.1
(Mobasher, 1999). The main constituents of concrete
such as sand, stone and water are mainly natural
resources. They are not produced in laboratory or in any
industry; they are obtained from the nature and
processed to make it perfect for aggregate. For example,
sand is carried by river water and then collected, and
stones are obtained by crushing of bolder using stone

382 Afr. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
#8
#
1 6
#
2 0
#
3 0
#
6 0
#
1 00
No. of S e ive
Total % retained
No. of sieve
Total % retained
S tone P owder
S and
Stone powder
Figure 1. Sieve analysis of sand and stone powder used in laboratory experiment.
crusher. These resources of engineering materials (sand,
stone) are limited and day by day the dependency on
them must be minimized. So some other materials should
be introduced by replacing sand and stone. Stone dust is
one of such alternative of sand that can fulfill the demand
of fine aggregate.
Jaflong is a tourist spot in the division of sylhet,
Bangladesh (Islam et al., 2010). It is famous for its stone
collections and for the location of the Khasi tribe (CIPMI,
2007). It lies sixty kilometers to the northeast of sylhet
(The Star, 2009). It is widely recognized tourism spot that
can play a very important role in the economy of a
developing country like Bangladesh. The beauty of
Jaflong is going to be destroyed day by day due to
unplanned activities (Mahzuz and Tajmunnahar, 2010).
Extraction of stone from river has put potential impacts on
Spanish population (Isabelle et al., 1999). And same
effect has been seen over the population of Jaflong. It
can affect the existing condition of physical, chemical and
biological process (Stones et al., 1985). In Jaflong a huge
numbers of stone crushers are available, as a result of
these extensively labor oriented economic activities, a
large number of low income workers live in Jaflong and
its surrounding. A huge amount of dust produced during
stone crushing. They are often considered as a waste in
the locality. They are not given any interest and thrown
here and there (Ahmed and Yusuf, 2009). While landfills
are commonly used for disposal of stone dust in
Bangladesh, rapid urbanization has made it increasingly
difficult to find suitable landfill sites (Lin and Weng, 2001).
Several attempts are seen in different researchers’
activity (Mahzuz et al., 2009; Sanchez et al., 2002; Shih
and Lin, 2003; Kameswari et al., 2001) to find out proper
utilization and disposal of waste. Another research
conducted (Villalobos, 2005) on evaluation, testing and
comparison between crushed manufactured sand and
natural sand focuses the physical characteristics and
properties (moisture content, FM, Bulk specific gravity,
absorption capacity, bulk density, percentage of voids
and particle shape) of natural sands (ns) and
manufactured sands (ms). But the main objective of the
study is to evaluate relative performance of the concrete
made by normal sand and stone dust where the coarse
aggregate is crushed stone, in the same way the test is
performed using Brick khoa as a coarse aggregate. This
study ensures the stone powder or as an appropriate
alternative of sand (fine aggregate) in concrete
manufacturing as a building materials. As a low cost
coarse aggregate Brick chip is considered to ensure the
acceptance and adequacy in construction purposes.
METHODOLOGY
In order to establish the stone powder produced during stone
crushing as an alternative of normal sand a lots of laboratory test
are conducted and compared with the same obtained result from
the normal sand concrete. For these purposes the compressive
strength of mortar (2” x 2”) and concrete (6” x 6”) (for 3, 7 and 28
days) is tested as per British standard. 3 samples were prepared for
every single test. Therefore 9 specimens were made for one mix
ratio. The concrete and mortar block were made by a standard
method with proper curing and tempering. The blocks are then
tested by compression testing machine. As the study focuses on
the adequacy of fine aggregate and hence the fineness modulus
(Figure 1) of stone powder and sand was calculated and rest of

Mahzuz et al. 383
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Days
3 7 28
Figure 2. Compressive strength vs duration for mortar of 1:2.75.
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Days
3 7 28
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
3 days
7 days
28 day s
Figure 3. Compressive strength vs duration for mortar of 1:3.
sample remained constant. The obtained result is analyzed and
then discussion is prepared depending on the result obtained.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
This study shows that the compressive strength both for
mortar and concrete using stone powder gives
impressive result than that of normal sand for the ratio of
1:2.75, 1:3 and 1:3.5. Figure 2 shows that for the ratio of
1:2.75, for 3 days the compressive strength of mortar (2”
x 2”) sand is 12.17 Mpa and of stone powder are 17.51
Mpa. For 7 days it is increased by 37.64% from sand to
stone powder (17.96 to 28.8 Mpa). The highest value of
compressive strength of mortar is tasted for stone powder
is 32.45 Mpa for 28 days whereas mortar made by sand
shows a value of 24.98 which is 23.02% smaller than the
value of stone powder. Figure 3 shows the compressive
strength of mortars of 1:3 and it is evident that for 3 days
the compressive strength of stone powder is increased by
32.85% from normal sand. The compressive strength of
sand for 7 days is 16.25 Mpa which is 22.84% smaller
value of stone powdered mortar compressive strength.
For 28 days mortar shows the highest value for this ratio
and stone powder is increased by 18.2% from normal
sand value. Figure 4 shows the compressive strength of
mortar sand is 7.95 Mpa for 3 days whereas 10.38 Mpa
has been tasted for stone powder. For 7 days it is 13.38
and 18.9 Mpa for normal sand and stone powder
accordingly. Finally for 28 days 20.52% of compressive
strength is increased from normal sand to stone
powdered mortar. Figure 5 shows that for the ratio of

384 Afr. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
3
days
7
days
28
days
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Days
3 7 28
Figure 4. Compressive strength vs duration for mortar of 1:3.5.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Days
3 7 28
Stone powder
Sand
Figure 5. Compressive strength vs duration for concrete (crushed stone) of 1:1.5:3.
1:1.5:3 compressive strength of concrete by stone chip
with normal sand and stone powder is quite close for 3
days which is 4.62% increased value from normal sand to
stone powdered concrete. For 7 days the compressive
strength of sand concrete is 22.21 Mpa whereas for stone
powder it is 23.97 which is 7.34% higher value from
normal sand concrete. For 28 days compressive strength
of stone powdered concrete is 14.76% higher than the
compressive strength of normal sand concrete. Figure 6
shows a close value for compressive strength of concrete
for the duration of 3 and 28 days for the ratio of 1:2:4. For
3 days the value is 15.26 and 16.01 Mpa for sand and
stone powder respectively and for 28 days it is 21.11 and
22.01 Mpa accordingly. For 7 days the compressive
strength value of normal sand is 16.78 Mpa where as
stone powder shows 19.87% higher value. Figure 7
shows that using 1:2.5:5 mix ratios in concrete,
compressive strength for 3 days for normal sand is
12.025 Mpa and for stone powder the compressive
strength is 14.21 Mpa. For 7 days it is increased by
16.63% from sand to stone powder (14.04 to 16.84 Mpa).
The highest value of compressive strength of concrete is
tasted for stone powder is 21.16 Mpa for 28 days
whereas concrete made by sand shows a value of 18.95
which is 10.44% smaller than the value of stone powder.
Figure 8 shows that the compressive strength of normal
sand and powder sand of brick chip is quite close for 3
days. For 7 days the compressive strength of normal
sand concrete by brick chip is 15.8Mpa whereas for stone
powder it is 17.23 which is 8.3% higher value from
normal sand concrete. For 28 days compressive strength
of stone powdered concrete is 13.74% higher than the

Mahzuz et al. 385
0
5
10
15
20
25
3 Days 7 D ay s 28 Days
Compressive strength (Mpa)
3 7 28
Days
S and
S toneP owde
r
Stone powder
Sand
Figure 6. Compressive strength vs duration for concrete (crushed stone) 1:2:4.
0
5
10
15
20
25
3
7
28
Days
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Sand
Stone powder
Figure 7. Compressive strength vs duration for concrete (crushed stone) 1:2.5:5.
compressive strength of normal sand concrete. Figure 9
shows a smooth increasing of the compressive strength
of concrete of normal sand to stone powder. For 3 days
the value is 11.82 and 13.13 Mpa for sand and stone
powder respectively and for 28 days it is 19.33 and 21.94
Mpa accordingly. For 7 days the compressive strength
value of normal sand is 15.25 Mpa where as powder
sand shows 9.06% higher value. Figure 10 shows that for
3 days the compressive strength of concrete of normal
sand is 9.63 Mpa and of stone powder are 9.5 Mpa which
are very close value. For 7 days it is increased by 8.32%
from sand to stone powder (12.89 to 14.06 Mpa). The
highest value of compressive strength of concrete is
tasted for stone powder is 19.05 Mpa for 28 days
whereas concrete made by sand shows a value of 17.96
which is 5.72% smaller than the value of stone powder.
Conclusion
This study focuses the relative performance of concrete
by normal sand and crushed stone and concrete by stone
powder and stone chip. Same performance was
evaluated using brick chip instead of stone chip. From the
laboratory study, it can be concluded that stone powder is
well appropriate for medium graded concrete for better

386 Afr. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
3 Days
7 Days
28 Days
3
7
28
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Days
Stone Powder
Sand
Stone powder
Figure 8. Compressive strength vs duration for concrete (brick chip) of 1:1.5:3.
0
5
10
15
20
25
3 Days
7 Days
28 Days
Compressive Strength, Mpa
Compressive strength (Mpa)
3
7
28
Days
Ratio 1:2:4
S tone P owder
S and
Stone powder
Figure 9. Compressive strength Vs. duration for concrete (brick Chip) of 1:2:4.
performance in terms of strength and economy over
normal sand. Because for all the ratios of concrete using
stone powder gives 14.76, 4 and 10.44%, increased
value of compressive strength for the ratios of 1:1.5:3,
1:2:4 and 1:2.5:5 respectively from that of normal sand.
Similarly for brick chip in all the ratios concrete give

Mahzuz et al. 387
0
5
10
15
20
25
3 Days 7 Days 28 Days
Compressive Strength, Mpa
3 7 28
Compressive strength (Mpa)
Days
S tone P owder
S and
Stone powder
Figure 10. Compressive strength vs duration for concrete (brick chip) of 1:2.5:5.
higher compressive strength but less value than the
stone chip concrete. For mortar, stone powder is well
appropriate to choose it as an alternative of sand. The
availability of the stone powder is limited and its price is
not defined. If the stone powder can have a price value, it
is not difficult to market it and use it as an alternative of
sand. It is also seen from the study that the compressive
strength of concrete made of brick chips is low comparing
with that of the concrete made of stone chip. This may be
due to low quality brick chip, weak workmanship, and
wrong proportions of mixing. But as brick chip is
economical and available so normally for the low strength
structures it can be used.
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