Potential use of mine tailings and fly ash in concrete

Tailing Material (TM) and Fly Ash (FA) are obtained as waste products from the mining and thermal industries. Studies were carried out to explore the possibility of utilizing TM as a part replacement to fine aggregate and FA as a part replacement to cement, in concrete mixes. The effect of replacing fine aggregate by TM and cement by FA on the standard sized specimen for compressive strength, split tensile strength, and flexural strengths are evaluated in this study. The concrete mix of M40 grade was adopted with water cement ratio equal to 0.40. Concrete mix with 35% TM and 65% natural sand (TM35/S65) has shown superior performance in strength as against (TM0/S100, TM30/S70, TM40/S60, TM50/S50, and TM60/S40). For this composition, studies were performed to propose the optimal replacement of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) by FA (Replacement levels studied were 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%). Replacement level of 20% OPC by FA, has shown about 0-5% more compressive strength as against the control mix, for both 28 day and 56 days of water curing. Interestingly results of split tensile and flexural strengths for 20% OPC replaced by FA, have shown strengths equal to that of no replacement (control mix).