Experimental Study of Sustainable Recycled Concrete Aggregates in Steel-Concrete Composite Construction

Speaker: Ee Loon Tan

Affiliation: University of Western Sydney

Time: Monday 17/08/2015 from 14:00 to 15:00

Venue: Access Grid UWS. Presented from Penrith (Y239), accessible from Parramatta (EB.1.32) and Campbelltown (26.1.50).

Abstract: The use of recycled concrete aggregates is a sustainable alternative for natural aggregates. It reduces concrete waste produced in construction and demolition. Since there has been limited research on the use of recycled concrete aggregates in steel-concrete composite construction and various standards such as Australian Standard AS 2327.1 and Eurocode 4 do not provide specifications for the use of recycled concrete aggregates in composite steel-concrete construction. Therefore, this paper investigates the integration of recycled concrete using sustainable recycled concrete aggregates in composite steel-concrete beam structure. This paper presents an experimental study on the ultimate load behaviour of composite steel-concrete beams. A total of fifteen composite steel-concrete beams with different concrete mix comprised of various percentage of recycled aggregates (0%, 30%, 50%, 70% and 100%) and water to cement content ratio (0.35, 0.45 and 0.55) were tested. Each beam was simply supported at the ends and was subjected to applied load at mid-span. From the experimental study, it was found that the 0.35 and 0.45 water to cement ratio achieved higher ultimate load capacity than 0.55. The optimal replacement percentage of recycled concrete aggregates was 70 % with the highest ultimate load capacity. Furthermore, there was no significant reduction in strength when recycled concrete aggregate was used to replace the natural aggregate in the concrete mix for composite steel-concrete beams.

Biography: Dr Ee Loon Tan joined the School of Engineering at University of Western Sydney as a Lecturer in February 2011 after he received his PhD degree from University of Western Sydney in 2010. His PhD was titled: "The effects of partial shear connection on composite steel-concrete beams subjected to combined flexure and torsion." Previously, he graduated from University of New South Wales with both a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering and a Master degree in Structural Engineering from 1999 to 2004. During his studies, he has worked for CPG Corporation Pte Ltd (Singapore) as an Engineering Trainee in the Civil and Structural Engineering Division from 2001 to 2002. Furthermore, he held a position as a Research Assistant to assist in an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project from 2009 to 2011 in University of Western Sydney under the supervision of Professor Brian Uy.