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Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000
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Procedia Engineering 210 (2017) 105–108

6th International Workshop on Performance, Protection & Strengthening of Structures under

Extreme Loading, PROTECT2017, 11-12 December 2017, Guangzhou (Canton), China

Shear strength of recycled aggregates concrete

Khaldoun Rahala一
Department
Department of Civil Engineering, Kuwait University, Kuwait City, Kuwait
a

Abstract

The use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) to replace part or all of the natural coarse aggregates (NCA) in the production of
concrete has been on the increase. Such use helps in the preservation of the natural resources and in the reduction in the use of
landfills. Research is needed to understand the effects of using RCA on the properties of concrete. This paper reports the results
of an experimental study of the pushoff shearing strength of normal-strength plain recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). A total of
twenty seven pushoff specimens were cast and tested. The percentages of replacement (PR) of NCA with RCA were 0, 20%,
50% and 100%. The results showed a 7% reduction in the shearing strength for PR of 20% and 50% and a 28% reduction for PR
of 100%.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
© 2017 The Authors.
Peer-review Published by
under responsibility ofElsevier Ltd. committee of the 6th International Workshop on Performance, Protection &
the scientific
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 6th International Workshop on Performance, Protection &
Strengthening of Structures under Extreme Loading.
Strengthening of Structures under Extreme Loading
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1. Shear strength of RCA

It has been shown that the properties of RCA can be inferior to those of NCA [1,2]. This can negatively affect the
properties of the produced concrete, especially those which rely significantly on the properties of the aggregates [3].
Concrete and reinforced concrete (RC) are known to depend on aggregate interlock to provide resistance to shearing
stresses. Hence, their shear behavior can be considerably affected by use of RCA.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +965-2498-5734; fax: +965-2481-7524.

E-mail address: khaldoun.rahal@ku.edu.kw

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 6th International Workshop on Performance, Protection & Strengthening of
Structures under Extreme Loading.

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 6th International Workshop on Performance, Protection &
Strengthening of Structures under Extreme Loading.
10.1016/j.proeng.2017.11.054
106
2 Khaldoun
Khaldoun Rahal/Rahal / Procedia
Procedia Engineering
Engineering 210000–000
00 (2017) (2017) 105–108

Nomenclature

fcu compressive strength of concrete (150 mm cube)

PR percentage of replacement of NCA with RCA
vu ultimate nominal shearing strength
 normalized ultimate nominal shearing strength

There has been considerable amount of research on the shear behavior of RAC. However, the effects of using
RCA on the shearing strength concrete are not yet fully understood [3]. This paper presents the results of an
experimental study of the pushoff shearing strength of RAC.

2. Experimental Program

Fig. 1 shows the details of the specimens. The specimens were 150 mm by 150 mm, 320 mm in height. The
shear transfer plane was 115 by 150 mm and was not crossed by steel reinforcement. Reinforcement was provided
in the specimens to avoid flexural failure and to ensure that the failure takes place along the shear transfer plane.
Table 1 provides details about the testing program. The PR values in the specimens were 0%, 20%, 50% and 100%.

Fig. 1. Details of pushoff test specimens and test setup

2.1. Materials

Tap water and ordinary Portland cement type 1 conforming to ASTM C150 were used. The fine aggregate was
natural sand.

Table 1. Summary of test program and test results

PR No. of pushoff Age fcu vu vu /(fcu)0.5 n
specimens (days) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
0% 4 14 40.6 4.69 0.735 1.00
20 % 8 15 36.2 4.12 0.684 0.93
50 % 10 18 37.0 4.16 0.683 0.93
100 % 5 14 38.0 3.08 0.529 0.72

Three grades of coarse aggregates were used: 19, 12.5 and 9.5 mm. The natural coarse aggregates were locally
available Gabbro and the recycled ones were locally produced in a specialized plant strictly from waste concrete.
 Khaldoun Rahal / Procedia Engineering 210 (2017) 105–108 107
Khaldoun Rahal/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000 3

Visual inspection of the RCA showed that they were free from non-concrete debris. The LA abrasion, crushing
value and impact value of the NCA were 17.0%, 16.4% and 14.5% respectively. These results were 33.3%, 23.9%
and 26.4% for the RCA respectively. The inferior quality of the RCA is evident.

2.2. Proportions, mixing and curing

The proportions of the concrete batch per cubic meter were 410 kg of cement, 710 kg of sand and 1100 kg of
coarse aggregates. The water to cement ratio was 0.52 to 0.54. The coarse aggregates were 260 kg of grade 19 mm,
260 of grade 12.5 mm and 500 kg of grade 9.5 mm.
The replacement of NCA with RCA was based on their weight. Replacement affected all grades of aggregates
equally. For example, for a PR value of 20%, 20% of the 19 mm grades, 20% of the 12.5 mm grade and 20% of the
9.5 mm grade in weight were RCA. The remaining 80% content was NCA for each of the three grades.
The concrete was mixed in a laboratory mixer. A superplasticizer conforming to ASTM C494 type F was used to
obtain an adequate slump. The pushoff specimens and the accompanying cubes were cast from the same batch. All
concrete was moist-cured in lab conditions for seven days. The metal forms were stripped 24 hours after casting.
All specimens were tested at an age ranging from 14 to 18 days. See Table 1.

2.3. Testing

The pushoff specimens were tested in compression as shown in Fig. 1. The rate of loading was 5 kN/minute.
The concrete specimens failed in shear along the shear-transfer plane in all twenty seven specimens, causing each
one to split into two pieces. Fig. 2 shows the final conditions of a specimen after splitting.

Fig. 2. Failure across shear transfer plane

3. Experimental Results

Table 1 reports a summary of the experimental results obtained. The compressive strength of the concrete used
ranged from 36.2 to 40.6 MPa. These results are average values based on at least six cubes cast from the same
concrete used for the pushoff specimens.
Table 1 also shows that the total number of pushoff specimens tested was twenty seven. The values of the
ultimate shearing strengths vu are average values for each set of specimens having the same PR. The average values
vu ranged from 4.68 MPa for the conventional natural aggregates concrete (NAC) specimens to 3.08 MPa for the
RAC specimens. In spite of the fact that the compressive strength of the different concrete did not differ
considerably, a more adequate evaluation of the effects of the use of RCA is obtained by normalizing the values of
vu with respect to the square root of the compressive strength. Table 1 reports the normalized shearing
strengths v u f cu . These values ranged from 0.735 for NAC to 0.529 for RAC.
108 Khaldoun Rahal / Procedia Engineering 210 (2017) 105–108
4 Khaldoun Rahal/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

To assess the effect of PR on the normalized shearing strengths, the strength values are further normalized with
respect to the control value corresponding to the NAC specimens to give the factors . These values are reported in
Table 1 and are plotted in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Normalized shearing strength versus percentages of replacement of RCA with NCA

Table 1 and Fig. 3 show that the reduction in the shearing strength depended considerably on PR. Replacing 20%
and 50% of the NCA with RCA caused only a 7% decrease in the shearing strength. However, full replacement
(PR=100%) caused a 28% decrease.

4. Conclusions

Twenty seven pushoff specimens were tested to assess the effects of replacing part or all the coarse aggregates
with recycled aggregates. The ratios of replacement were 0%, 20%, 50% and 100%. The recycled aggregates were
produced strictly from waste concrete. Their properties were shown to be inferior to those of natural aggregates.
The experiments showed that the shearing strength depended considerably on the percentage of replacement of
NCA with RCA. The data showed that 20% and 50% replacement caused only a 7% reduction in the normalized
shear strength. However, full replacement caused a 29% reduction.

Acknowledgements

The research reported in this report was supported by Research Sector, Kuwait University, Research Grant
EV01/13. The author gratefully acknowledges this support.

References

[1] D.J. Collery, K.A. Paine, R.K. Dhir, Establishing rational use of recycled aggregates in concrete: a performance related approach, Magazine
of Concrete Research 67 (2015) 559–574.
[2] K.N. Rahal, Mechanical properties of concrete with recycled coarse aggregate, Building and Environment 42(2007) 407–415.
[3] K.N. Rahal, Y.T. Alrefaei, Shear strength of longitudinally reinforced recycled aggregate concrete beams, Engineering Structures J 145
( 2017) 273–282.