Effects of Copper Slag on Concrete

Abstract

Cement and sand are major constituents of concrete. In manufacturing of concrete large quantity of the natural resources are used. There is great demand of material mainly from civil engineering industry for road and concrete constructions but now days it is very difficult problem in availability of material and also creates adverse effect on the environment. Unfortunately, production of cement involves emission of large amounts of carbon-dioxide gas into the atmosphere, a major contributor for greenhouse effect and the global warming, hence it is inevitable either to search for another material or partially replace it by some other material. So researchers developed waste management strategies to apply for replacement of fine aggregates and cement for specific need. Natural resources are depleting worldwide while at the same time the generated wastes from the industry are increasing substantially. The waste management is trying to compensate the lack of natural resources and to find alternative ways conserving the environment. Some of the industrial byproducts have been used in the construction industry for the production of concrete. Copper slag is one of the materials that is considered as a waste material which could have been used in construction industry as partial replacement of either cement or aggregates. For this thesis work, M40 grade concrete was used and the tests were conducted for various proportions of copper slag replacement with sand from 0% to 50 % in concrete and copper slag replacement with cement from 0% to 15%.