Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Beams Containing Waste Crushed Concrete and Bricks

Abstract Recycling demolition waste materials as construction materials offers environmental as well as economic benefits by protecting virgin materials and reducing overall costs of project. This paper presents an experimental investigation on flexural behavior of reinforced concrete beams made with coarse aggregate fully 100 % or partially 50 % replaced by crushed concrete or crushed bricks as waste materials in full or half depth of beams. Nine beams are tested over a simply supported span, one with full natural aggregate as reference and the others with waste aggregate in different ratios and depths (four with crushed concrete and four with crushed bricks). Results show that the structural behavior of beams with waste aggregates is similar to the reference beam with strength reduction of 3 – 20 %. Crushed concrete beams show higher strength and stiffer behavior (in general) than crushed bricks. Also, increasing replacement ratio from 50 % to 100 % or replacement depth from half to full reduced strength by about 10 % only which encourage utilizing maximum quantity of waste construction materials in concrete structures.