Towords a protection of the environment by valorizing the silt of stopping as concrete component

Hydraulically installations are subjected to significant siltings which, within very short times often, can make them unusable. In Algeria, the silting of a great number of dams built for the needs for the drinking water populations and for the irrigation implies the need and the urgency of intervention. Thus the maintenance work which results in extracting by dredging the silts deposited constitutes an insupportable requirement for the safeguarding of the environment: a real concrete example is the dam of Fergoug (west of Algeria). In a spirit of sustainable development and for a good management of the environment, several fields for the use of the silt as a raw material and either as waste in the civil engineering. The objective of this work is economical, ecological and technical. It consists in developing the silt resulting from the dam of Fergoug as a building material used as a concrete component after calcinations (to make it activated), in partial substitutable proportionswith cement (10, 15 and 20%). The concretes thus made are tested to study their evolution of mechanical strength (compression and traction) and shrinkage behaviour. The results obtained at show good prospects for the concretes containing silt which post satisfactory mechanical performances and shrinkage behaviour.