An Experimental Study on Water Permeability of Architectural Mortar Using Waste Glass as Fine Aggregate

This paper investigates the water permeability, consistency and density of architectural mortar with various contents of glass sand as fine aggregate. To reduce the effect of alkali-silica-reaction (ASR), metakaolin (MK) was used as supplementary cementitious material (SCM) instead of a component of white cement. The microstructure of glass sand mortar was visualized by means of scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. The experimental results showed that the permeability of the mortar increased with the glass sand, reaching its maximum at about 60-80% glass sand content. The optimum MK content varied with the content of glass sand, and higher content of MK was required for 60% glass sand. In addition, the consistency and density of mortar had a negative correlation with the increase of glass sand.