Alkali-silica reaction of sanitary ware ceramic wastes utilized as aggregate in ordinary and high-performance mortars

Abstract

Waste management has been the foremost concern in the last decades. Utilizing sanitary ware ceramic (SWC) wastes in concrete has been found to be beneficial in terms of sustainability and cost in previous studies; however, deleterious alkali-silica reaction (ASR) potential of this waste aggregate, albeit it's high SiO2 content, has not been taken into account. This study aims to examine ASR potential of SWC wastes as well as the effects of permeability, w/c ratio, and reactive powder content of mixtures on the ASR-induced expansions in detail. Accelerated mortar bar, total and capillary water absorptions, and chloride ion penetration tests were conducted for %20, %40, %60, %80, and %100 replacement ratios at the first part of the study. The SWC aggregate showed ASR-induced expansions in “pessimum proportions”. With a 9-day delay, similar patterns (trends) of ASR expansions were observed in the mixtures with a w/c ratio of 0.3 as compared with those of 0.5 w/c ratio. While the ASR expansions had meaningful relations with the water absorption tests and w/c ratio, there was no noteworthy correlation with the rapid chloride ion penetration test results, since the SWC aggregate effected the properties of pore solution. The effect of the finer grains of the SWC aggregate on ASR was investigated in the second part of the study. For this purpose, the SWC aggregate finer than 250 µm was replaced with same sized limestone aggregate. The results revealed that the finer grains of SWC aggregate were responsible for the reductions observed in the first part of the study not due to “pessimum effect” phenomenon but rather to the pozzolanic activity of the finer grains. © 2021