Structural Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Slabs Containing Fine Waste Aggregates of Polyvinyl Chloride

In several areas worldwide, the high cost and shortage of natural resources have encouraged researchers and engineers to explore the serviceability and feasibility of using recycled aggregates in concrete mixtures, substituting a normal aggregate percentage. This technique has advantages for the environment by reducing the accumulation of waste materials, while it impacts the fresh and hardened concrete performances, reducing workability, flexural strength, compressive strength, and tensile strength. However, most studies have investigated the influence of replacing normal aggregates with waste aggregates on the concrete mechanical properties without examining the impact of using waste materials on concrete structural performance. The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of replacing 75% of sand volume with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) fine waste aggregates on the performance of reinforced concrete slabs. Different thicknesses of the concrete layer (0%, 25%, 50%, and 100% of slab thickness) containing PVC fine waste aggregates are investigated. Based on the reductions in the toughness and flexural strength capacity due to incorporating 75% PVC fine aggregate dosage, two approaches are used to strengthen the slabs with 75% PVC fine aggregates. The first approach is adding polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to the PVC fine aggregate concrete mix to improve the mechanical properties of the concrete. The PVA increases the water viscosity in the concrete, which reduces the dry out phenomenon. With that said, the PVA modified fresh concrete does enable the use of the limits of the PVC fine aggregate dosage for high dosage plastic aggregate concrete. The second approach uses two fiber wire mesh layers as an additional reinforcement in the tested slab. Results show that the PVC-30 slab exhibits an 8% decrease in total area toughness compared to the control (Con) slab, while for PVC-60 slab toughness, the total area shows 26% less. Additionally, the inclusion of PVA in the concrete with 75% PVC plastic waste fine aggregate replacement greatly influences the pre-and post-cracking ductile performance among other slabs, representing that using PVA with higher contents might increase the flexural performance. Therefore, due to the substantial effect of PVA material on the concrete flexural performance, it is proposed to utilize PVA with an optimum PCV fine aggregate dosage in the concrete mix.