Effects of Partial Replacement of Fine Aggregate with Quarry Dust on Concrete Properties

Natural river sand is one of the important constituent materials in concrete production while stone dust is a material obtained from crusher plants which is also sometimes being used either partially or fully in replacement of natural river sand in concrete production. Use of stone dust in concrete not only improves the quality of concrete but also conserve the natural river sand. However, due its scarcity and environmental degradation caused resulting from excessive mining of Natural river sand, there is need to investigate an alternative material of the same quality which can replace river sand in concrete production. In the present study, experiments were carried out to study the gradation of aggregates, workability, compressive strength and split tensile strength of concrete made using quarry dust as replacement of fine aggregate at 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%. Grade M15 of concrete was produced with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) for referral concrete while M25 of concrete was prepared for compressive strength and split tensile strength concrete. Workability and Compressive strength were determined at different replacement level of fine aggregate and optimum replacement level was determined based on compressive strength. Results showed that by replacing 50% of fine aggregate with quarry dust, concrete of maximum compressive strength can be produced as compared to all other replacement levels. The effect of quarry dust on compressive strength and split tensile strength was investigated and from the overall result obtained, it was observed that the compressive strength and split tensile strength increased significantly for all the curing ages from 0% to 50% replacement level of quarry dust. Maximum value obtained for 28day compressive and tensile strength were 25N/mm2 and 2.3N/mm2 respectively and this occurred at 50% replacement.