Some engineering properties of sustainable self-compacting mortar made with ceramic and glass powders

Abstract

This work aims to produce a sustainable self-compacting mortar (SCM), by replacing a part of cement with powders from waste materials such as glass and ceramic. Nine mixtures have been prepared, one as reference mixture and includes only ordinary portland cement, and eight containing different proportions of ceramic and glass powders (5, 15, 25 and 50%). In the fresh state, two tests were carried out: slump flow and flow time. In order to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of SCM mixtures, compressive strength, flexural strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) and water absorption were measured. The results showed that adding glass and ceramic powders until 25% improved the fresh properties of SCM. At hardened state, replacing cement by 5% of glass and ceramic powders (GP and CP) resulted in acceptable physical and mechanical properties.