The sustainability of recycled concrete as

green material solution

Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 2213, 020280 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0000426
Published Online: 25 March 2020

M. A. Azizan, N. Z. Noriman, H. Desa, N. Ishak, Omar S. Dahham, M. U. Umar, and Izwan Johari

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AIP Conference Proceedings 2213, 020280 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0000426 2213, 020280

© 2020 Author(s).
The Sustainability of Recycled Concrete as Green Material
Solution
M.A. Azizan1, N. Z. Noriman2a, H. Desa3, N. Ishak1, Omar S. Dahham2, M. U.
Umar4,5 and Izwan Johari6
1
Faculty of Engineering Technology (Civil), Universiti Malaysia Perlis, UnicitiAlam, Perlis, Malaysia
2
Faculty of Engineering Technology (Mechanical), Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), 02100, Perlis,
Malaysia.
3
Centre of Excellence for Unmanned Aerial Systems (COEUAS), School of Mechatronics,
Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Jalan Kangar Alor-setar 01000, Kangar Perlis, Malaysia
4
School of Housing Building and Planning, USM Malaysia
5
JV Heritage Conservation & Technology Research Group, Penang, Malaysia
6
School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

aCorresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract. Nowadays, there are lot of concrete waste were produced from demolition, destruction and others. The usage
of concrete is not environmentally friendly due to depletion of reserve natural resources, high energy consumption and
disposal issues. Construction debris give a large fraction of solid waste disposal problem, and constitutes the large
component. By recycling concrete waste for brick production as replacement the other materials, it can reduce the usage
of natural resources and disposal problem that have been occur. The aim of this study to determine the sustainability of
the recycled concrete by producing a brick using recycled coarse concrete aggregate at nominal size 10mm. An
experiment done by comparing the result of the control specimen using 100% natural sand with specimen that have
replaced the sand with recycled concrete aggregate for 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, and
100%. The result showed the optimum recycled concrete to produce a brick is at 90% replacement of RCCA where the
compressive strength and flexural was achieved 9.7MPA and 3.53MPA respectively with 16133.33 kg/m3 of density.
The water absorption of green brick is 9.23% and the cost of brick have been reduced from Rm0.26 to 0.20.

INTRODUCTION
In the development and commercial construction, concrete is the most widely used worldwide. In the long
term, if construction keep use and wasting the natural material, it may be will run out. This is because the concrete
is popular with it benefits such as general availability, economy, and wide applicability [1]. The decreased of raw
material may affect the cost of that material whereas it will keep increase. In fact, the concrete production was
linearly increase with the growing economy of Malaysia [2].Because the concrete are commonly use in the
construction, the increases of the price of the material will be make the cost of the construction increase too.
Besides, a lot of concrete debris are produce every year around the world due to old structure demolition, of
buildings and structures destruction during earthquakes and wars, useless concrete remove from structures,
buildings, and road pavement and others, waste concrete generated due to concrete testing, destructive methods of
testing of existing structures and others [3]. Because of this situation, concrete debris must be recycled to make a
new thing or material.
Sustainability is increasingly becoming a key consideration for practitioners of building with the goal of
increase the economic efficiency, protecting, and restoring ecological systems and improve the human well-being.
To achieve the sustainability, the material must can be have an aspect of reusability and recyclability to mold that
material into a different or similar building product [4].Recycled aggregate have not strong enough if want to
compare with the natural material. But, suitable mix designs can be produce and dependable outcomes acquired
[3]. Therefore, recycled concrete aggregate as coarse aggregate was selected as waste replacement material of
sand-aggregate of sand cementbrick compared to conventional sand cement brick.

2nd International Conference on Materials Engineering & Science (IConMEAS 2019)

AIP Conf. Proc. 2213, 020280-1–020280-6; https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0000426
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1964-3/$30.00

020280-1
 Many researchers exhibited that compressive strength of sand cement brick influenced by the physical and
mechanicalproperties of fine RCA. Brick with 55% recycled concrete aggregate presented the optimum value of
compressive strength which is 18.76Mpa at 7 days of curing [5].The profits of economy brought by green building
materials determined from the difference between materials of green building and materials of traditional building.
In the production of green building material, a raw material that have been used a using as little as possible of
natural resources, it use a tailings, trash, other materials waste to reduce manufacturing cost and the waste of
resources [6]. So, this study was conducted to determine the optimum value of recycled concrete that can be used
to produced green material for construction.

EXPERIMENTAL

Raw Material
Concrete debris was collected from the concrete testing waste at lab of University Malaysia Perlis. Concrete
debris was crushed to the nominal size 10mm where it is as coarse aggregate. According to JKR standard the grain
size distribution of recycled coarse aggregates as shown in Table 1. In this study, there are 11 different percentages
of recycled concrete aggregate that cotained in the brick which is 0 %, 10%, 20 %, 30 %, 40 %, 50 %, 60 % , 70, %
80 %, 90 % and 100 %.
TABLE 1. Sieve analysis for coarse aggregate
Sieve size(BS410) Percentage by mass passing BS 410 sieve for nominal sizes

Graded Aggregates Single-sized Aggregate

40 mm to 20 mm to 14 mm to 40 mm 20 mm 10 mm
5 mm 5 mm 5 mm
50.0 mm 100 - - 100 - -
37.5 mm 90 to 100 100 - 85 to 100 100 -
20.0 mm 35 to 70 90 to 100 100 0 to 25 85 to 100 -
14.0 mm 25 to 55 40 to 80 90 to 100 - 0 to 70 100
10.0 mm 10 to 40 30 to 60 50 to 85 0 to 5 0 to 25 85 to 100
5.0 mm 0 to 5 0 to 10 0 to 10 - 0 to 5 0 to 25
2.36 mm - - - - - 0 to 5

Mix Design and Process

According to the JKR standard [7], the mixture ratio to produce the brick is 1:6 which is 1 part of cement and 6
part of sand where 50 kg of cement equal to 0.035 cube. The mortar mixture of brick is mixing according to the
percentages of recycle concrete aggregate. In a mixture of mortar to produce the brick must be determine the need
of volume first according to the size of mould or formwork to make sure there are no a lot of wastage produced
later. The mould of brick has been measured where its size is 70mm x 102.5mm x 205mm.
For mixing process, the materials which are cement, sand and recycled coarse concrete aggregate were mixed
by using a scope then the water was poured into the mixture. After the mixture has been well mix, the wet mixture
was poured into the mould then compacted. The mortar must be well compact to make sure the mixture has a good
bonding among it. After that, the wet green bricks are removed from the mould and placed it at the open space to
make it dry and being harden. Fig 1. shows the moulding process of the brick. Then, the cubes of concrete were
cured in the water until testing day for 7 days. The performance brick that contained recycled concrete aggregate is
compared with the control brick.

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 (a) Pouring into the mould (b) Placing at open space
FIGURE 1. (a) and (b) above shows moulding process of brick

Testing and Analysing

The water absorption has been conducted according to standard BS 1881:Part122:1983. The compressive
strength of concrete was carried out according to JKR standard. The minimum compressive strength of the brick is
5.2Mpa. The density of brick should be in range 1500kg/m3 to 1800kg/m3. The costing of brick is determined
according to the latest price from CIDB website.

Result and Discussion

Density strength
Fig 2. shows the average of density of the green brick with total percentages of the recycled coarse concrete
aggregate where the density was calculated by dividing the mass with the volume of the samples. From the result,
the density average for the brick are gradually increase until the 40% replacement of the recycled coarse concrete
aggregate. After that, the density decreases until 100% of the replacement of the recycled coarse concrete
aggregate. From the graph, the lowest density can be seen at 100% of recycled coarse concrete aggregate which
reduce 1435.56kg/m3 of density compared to the control brick. However, others density is higher than control
brick and the highest density is 1708.89kg/m3 by using 40% recycled coarse concrete aggregate. From the data, it
concludes that the density of green brick is depend on the volume of the recycled coarse concrete aggregate that
have been used [8, 9, 10].

FIGURE 2. Density (Kg/m3) versus recycled coarse concrete aggregate (%)

Compressive Strength
The compressive strength of the specimens determines its load bearing capacity before failure. Based on the
Fig 3., it shows the compressive strength average of brick with recycled coarse concrete aggregate. The
compressive strength of the green brick increases when recycled coarse concrete aggregate is replaced from 10 %
until 60%. However, the compressive strength decreases when the recycled coarse concrete aggregate replaced

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over than 60%. From the data that collected, it is demonstrates the green brick with 60% substitution of recycled
coarse aggregate has great bonding between cement, sand and recycled coarse aggregate [11, 12]. This because,
the ideal value of compressive strength that have been achieved after testing was 17Mpa by using 60% recycled
coarse concrete aggregate in the brick.

FIGURE 3. Compressive strength (Mpa) versus recycled coarse concrete aggregate (%)

Flexural Strength
The specimen period of the sample is 7 days.The highest of the flexural strength was 4.47Mpa by using 60%
recycled coarse concrete aggregate and the lowest of the flexural strength that have been obtain from this
experiment is at the control brick which is 1.33Mpa without any replacement of the recycled concrete aggregate.
But, the flexural strength of the green brick decreases when the recycled coarse concrete aggregate was replaced
over than 60% which is from 70% until 100% where the result that have be obtain is from 4.47Mpa to
3.07Mpa.The flexural strength of the green brick is gradually increase until 60% of the substitution of the recycled
coarse concrete aggregate, then the value of the flexural strength gradually decrease when the replacement more
than 60%. Fig 4. below shows the average of the flexural strength of all green brick with percentage of the recycled
coarse aggregate.

FIGURE 4. Flexural strength (Mpa) versus recycled coarse concrete aggregate (%)

Water Absorption
Fig 5. shows the result of the water absorption where the control brick obtains a high-water absorption which
15.62%. Then, the graph gradually decreases until 70% replacement of the recycled coarse concrete aggregate and
become fluctuated until 100% of the replacement. The minimum water absorption that have been obtain was
9.23% by using 90% recycled coarse concrete aggregate. However, based on the study carry out by past researcher
shows the water absorption keep increasing when more the recycle concrete aggregate are added [13][14].

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 Figure 5. Water absorption (%) versus recycled coarse concrete aggregate (%)

The Optimum Value of Recycled Coarse Concrete Aggregate

Based on the experiment that have been conducted which is density test, compressive strength test, flexural
strength test and water absorption test [15-17], the optimum value of the recycle coarse concrete aggregate can be
obtain.it can conclude the optimum replacement of the recycled coarse concrete aggregate is 90% that obtain
9.7Mpa of compressive strength, 3.53Mpa of flexural strength, 1613.33kg/m3 of density and a lowest water
absorption which is 9.23%. Although the strength is not the highest value, but the compressive strength is exceeds
the JKR standard.

Costing
Cost calculation of the brick was determined for normal brick and optimum recycled concrete aggregate that
have been used which is 90%. Table 2 shows the price of the green brick is Rm0.063 lower than normal brick
which is where the price of the material to produce of green brick is Rm0.119/unit and Rm0.182/unit for normal
brick. Based on the result, it can conclude that there are 34.6% difference of the material price between green brick
and normal brick that can be reduce in brick production. According to the current price of brick, after deducting the
price of the material from the normal brick, the remaining cost of the price includes the price of labour and profit
which is Rm 0.078/ unit. After adding labour cost and profit on the green brick, the cost to produce a green brick is
Rm0.20/unit. This can conclude that, the producing of the green brick can reduce the cost by Rm0.06.
TABLE 2. Costing to produce a brick.
Type Materia Ratio Weight/ Price of Price Total material Labour Total cost/
l ratio material/kg (RM) cost per brick cost and brick (RM)
(Kg) (RM) (RM) profit
(RM)

Control Cement 1 0.35 0.32 0.112 0.182 0.078 0.26

Sand 6 2.07 0.034 0.070
Green Cement 1 0.35 0.32 0.112 0.119 0.078 0.20
brick Sand 1/6 0.21 0.034 0.007
with RCCA 5/6 1.86 Free Free
90%
RCCA

Comparison between Green Brick and Normal Brick

Based on the observation that was carried out, it shows that compressive strength and the flexural strength
obtain a high value compared to the normal brick which 9.7Mpa and 3.53Mpa respectively. Therefore, the green
brick shows that it has a good bonding between materials to achieve a high strength. However, the green brick has
high density which is 16133.33 Kg/m3 compared to the normal brick that have 14511.11 Kg/m3 of density. Other

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than that, the green brick shows that the water absorption is more low than normal brick where the water
absorption that have been obtain is 9.23% for green brick and 15.62% for the normal brick.
From this experiment, the cost to produce the green brick will be decrease because of the reduction of the raw
material used which is Rm0.20 per unit compared to normal brick which have a price Rm0.26 per unit. This
because the raw material that have been used to produce a green brick which means sand is 0.21 kg, 90% lower
than normal brick. Besides, the availability of the material to produce brick such sand continues to decrease and
make the price of the sand increase. However, the waste of concrete that can be produced as an aggregate are still
available and keep increase every year. Based on the data, it can conclude that the green brick is more sustainable
even it has a high density but it has more advantage than normal brick

CONCLUSION
Based on the result, it can conclude that the optimum percentages of recycled coarse concrete aggregate to produce
a green brick is 90%that obtain 9.7Mpa of compressive strength, 3.53Mpa of flexural strength, 1613.33kg/m 3 of
density and a lowest water absorption which is 9.23%.Based on the current price of the construction material from
CIDB website which is cement and sand, the cost to produce a normal brick is Rm0.26/ unit and to produce green
brick is Rm0.20/unit. This cost is including the labour cost and profit. The cost to produce a brick has been reduce
23.1% because it uses 90% recycled coarse concrete aggregate. The validation of the recycled concrete have been
made by comparing the green brick and normal brick to know the recycled concrete sustainability. Based on the
comparison, the recycled coarse concrete aggregate have benefit in brick production because it can reduce price of
the brick. Besides, recycled concrete also can increase the strength of the brick and reduce the water absorption in
the brick. Then, the production of this green brick can reduce the use of natural material which sand and this can
give a benefit to the environment.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, Alhamdulillah with blessing from the Almighty Allah S.W.T gave me the courage, health and
energy to accomplish my final year project research in due date with successfully. I would especially like to
express my highest gratitude to my supervisor, Encik Muhammad Azizi Bin Azizan for giving me the opportunity
and commitment to lead this research. I also would like to thank to my department School of Engineering
Technology who whether directly or indirectly involved in my study. I would like to thanks to Encik Mokhzani for
given the co-operation to ease my final year project research.

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