Ceramic Waste as Fine and Coarse Aggregates for Sustainable Environment and Fire-Resistant Buildings

Abstract Reusing construction and demolition waste in the building process is an innovative solution to form sustainable constructions. This study aims to reclaim some of demolition and building waste materials so as to clean the environment and increase the resistance of concrete to fire exposure by consuming ceramic wastes as coarse and fine aggregates. This study includes evaluating the behavior of high-strength concrete (HSC) after exposing it to fire at high temperatures (400, 600, and 800 o C), the replacement of normal aggregates with processed ceramic waste 50% and 100% leads to higher increments in residual compressive strength. The test of HSC is done at maximum temperature 800 centigrade to avoid exploding or spalling the concrete specimens. For HSC reference mixes, compressive strength is 60.2 MPa but after exposure to 800 Centigrade, the residual strength reduces to 18.6 MPa, for a 100% replacement with ceramic aggregates, the residual compressive strength increases to 31.6 MPa, which is a good residual strength in concrete due to using ceramic waste as fine and coarse aggregates, the rate of reduction of compressive strength deeply reduced with high temperatures in the control mix to be 10, 30, and 69% at 400, 600, and 800 o C, but these decrements slightly happens with 50% and 100% ceramic displacement to be 10, 25, and 48% and 5, 17, and 35% respectively . The HSC including ceramic aggregates is also lighter than the HSC including normal aggregates, its weight also reduces more when it exposes to high temperatures, the weight reduction rate of ceramic aggregates HSC becomes 16% after exposing to 800 centigrade, while it only reduces to 9% when the HSC only uses gravel and sand aggregates.