Structural Performance of Cinder Aggregate Lightweight Concrete Beams with Micro-reinforcement

Conventional concrete is heavy which contributes to more dead load, resulting in higher cost of construction, more labour, difficulty in transportation of materials and so on. These impediments can be reduced by using lightweight concrete instead of the conventional concrete. In this study, an attempt has been undertaken to produce a sustainable lightweight concrete beam by recycling the cinder aggregate as coarse aggregate and polypropylene fibre as micro-reinforcement. Cinder is a solid waste material which is disposed by the steel and iron industries. A total of six cinder aggregate lightweight beams were cast and subjected to monotonic loading until failure occurred. The strength capacities, deformation characteristics, crack spectrum, ductility behaviour and energy capacities of the beam specimens were investigated. The test results demonstrated that by the inclusion of polypropylene fibre enhanced the performance of the lightweight concrete beams in terms of strength and ductility.