Designing Concrete Mixtures with RCA

Monday, January 30, 2023 - 15:45

The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) as a replacement in new concrete has gained popularity worldwide as a method of reducing natural aggregate consumption. Many individual studies have been completed but little work has been done to analyze that work to make broad conclusions on RCA concrete mechanical properties. This report presents the development and analysis of a database of mechanical properties of concrete containing coarse RCA and provides an investigation the applicability of numerically generated recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) systems by varying the material properties. A sensitivity study of RCA systems was conducted through a full-factorial analysis to explore how the mixture design proportions influence the RCA concrete hardened properties. The modeling methodology was adopted by using a computational algorithm that can generate concrete systems with different RCA replacement levels to numerically simulate RAC systems under mechanical loading. Numerically simulated results are compared with an experimental database that has been established, including a substantial data set on RAC mixture design proportions. RAC geometries and material properties were stochastically generated using Monte Carlo simulation methods, resulting in 200 representative numerical models that were subjected to simulated mechanical loading. The report can be downloaded from the Rutgers University web site at https://cait.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cait-utc-reg27-final.pdf

 


Thank you to our Premier Sponsors