Engineering Properties of Concrete Incorporating Water Purification Sludge

Abstract

The study aims to investigate the engineering properties of concrete incorporating water purification sludge (WPS). The design compressive strengths of concrete are 14 MPa and 21 MPa at 28 days. The rates of WPS for replacing natural aggregate are 0%, 30%, and 60%. The test results show that the slump and unit weight of fresh concrete decrease with the increase of the WPS content, and the development of concrete compressive strength and splitting strength also have the same phenomenon. The replacement ratio of WPS reaches 60%, and the ultrasonic pulse velocity is less than 3000 m/sec, meaning that the quality of the concrete is poor. Concrete with WPS has lower resistance to permeability than that control concrete, which means the durability of the concrete presents lower than that of control concrete. The concrete incorporating WPS has lower compressive strength and durability because of existing WPS particles in the interfacial transition zone around the aggregate.