PERFORMANCE OF RECYCLED GLASS WOOL FIBRE

REINFORCED CONCRETE MIXTURE

JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

MAJOR PROJECT (2021-2022)

Presented by Soumyakanti Pandit Kolkata, Fall of 2021

Under the guidance of Professor Amit Dutta
Department of Civil Engineering
Jadavpur University
 Certificate of recommendation

This is to certify that the Fourth Year Major Interim Project titled “PERFORMANCE OF
RECYCLED GLASS WOOL FIBRE REINFORCED CONCRETE MIXTURE” is being
submitted by Soumyakanti Pandit to the Civil Engineering Department, Jadavpur University for the
partial fulfilment of the requirement for awarding undergraduate degree is a record of bona fide project
work carried out by him under my supervision and guidance.

The project work contained in this interim report has not been submitted in part or full to any other
university or institution or professional body for award of a degree or diploma.

In charge of study:

Professor Amit Dutta

Department of Civil Engineering, Jadavpur University
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my gratitude towards the Department of Civil Engineering, Jadavpur University
for providing me the provisions to conduct a project work during my undergraduate course. I am
grateful for having Professor Amit Dutta as my guide for providing me the liberty to choose my project
topic and guiding me in understanding the process of executing this project. I would also like to thank
my friends Rishi, Pratim, Debesh, Sunamra, Sumit, Tamal, Shantanu and Himanshu for their
encouragement, suggestions and resourcing of reference materials for overall completion of this
project.
Kolkata, 2021-2022

Soumyakanti Pandit
University Roll Number: 001810401174
University Registration Number: 144021
Department of Civil Engineering, Jadavpur University
 PRESENTATION PLAN


Introduction

Literature Review

Inference of Study

Objective and Scope of Work

Methodology

Assumptions

4
What is glass wool insulation ?


Glass wool is an insulating material made from fibres of glass held
together by a binding resin.

Glass wool is manufactured by recycled glass (80%) and natural
sand by melting them at 1450o Celsius, then passing them through a
fine mesh in a centrifuge and cooling in air followed by finally
binding them with a resin.

Glass wool has excellent thermal and acoustic insulation properties
and it is fireproof as well for it’s low price, hence it is widely used all
over the world.
5
How much glass wool is used for insulation and
how much of it is disposed ?


The global demand for glass wool in 2020 was 4.8 million tons.

Almost 0.2 million tons of glass wool waste is disposed every year
from construction industry alone.

That amount of disposed glass wool only can cover approximately 4
million cubic metres of space if left without compaction.

Other than construction, different types of industries like iron and
steel, heavy machinery, chemical, petroleum, pharmaceutical,
power plants and even ships use this product as well.

6
 LITERATURE REVIEW

Properties of Glass Wool

Topic of discussion Author Website Year of publishing

Fire insulation Amir, Roslan and Ahmad - 2015
Weil 2011
Low thermal conductivity - LINK -
Strength of glass wool Heggebø - 2014
- PROPERTIES 2021
- STRENGTH 2015

Corrosion resistance - LIST 2021

7
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Topic of discussion Author Website Year of publishing

Dimensional stability Hartman, Greenwood and - 1996
Miller
Sound insulation Zhang - 2011

Demand of Glass Wool insulation in India

The Indian market was valued at $779 million in 2018 and is projected
to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate(CAGR) of more than 8%
to reach $1.2 billion by 2024 as per this STUDY.
8
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED


ISSUES REGARDING DISPOSAL OF GLASS WOOL

Topic of discussion Author Website Year of publishing

Impact on human Hiremath, Pandey and - 2017
health Asolekars
Henderson, Anderson,
Bernstein, Bunn, Chase, - 2012
Jankousky, Marsh and
McClennan
Impact of low density Mohan and Bhattacharya - 2012

9
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Topic of discussion Author Website Year of publishing

Impact of glass Singh, Rao and Asolekars - 2017
wool on Hoxha, Habert, Chevalier, - 2014
environment Bazanna and Manuel

10
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

The key takeaways about issues regarding disposal of glass wool are:

There is further scope of research on impact of glass wool fibres
on the human respiratory tract. It is suspected to be a carcinogen
with unidentified levels of threat.

It is in general an irritating substance to work with because of it’s
mechanically abrasive properties which penetrate the stratum
corneum of skin. This leads to itchiness and rash. Allergic
reactions are also observed towards the binding resin that might
be coating the particles.
11
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Retention Mechanism of Glass Wool Fibres in Human Cells


The glass wool fibres have a lot lower density than average Municipal
Solid Waste (MSW) matter, in general equal amount of disposed
insulation by weight can occupy more than 10 times the space that
average density MSW is supposed to consume. Hence direct disposal
is neither appreciable nor reliable.
12
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED


It is also seen that in many cases glass wool is contaminated with
oil, grease, poly aromatic compounds, ethers, esters, carboxylic
acids, alcohols and pthalates. These compounds are suspected to
have wide varieties of affect on marine life and ecosystem.

It is also seen that glass wool insulation may have particles of lead,
nickel and cadmium in it’s interstices which cannot be allowed
enter food chain by leaching into subsoil anyway at all because
biomagnification and heavy metals combination is extremely
problematic.

13
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Method of recycling by transforming into Cullet


Saint Gobain’s ISOVAR in a few locations of Europe have started a
program to collect waste glass wool from different locations left
after renovation, demolition or construction.

This is used to make cullet for new glass wool insulation.
 More information can be found on their WEBSITE .

14
LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Method of Recycling

15
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Method for Extraction of Silica from Glass Wool


Generally it is not possible to smelt glass wool in furnace and rebuilt it directly
because the binding resin starts to melt and seep into the glass reducing it’s
quality and also damages the furnace at 300o Celsius.

This method involves reduction of the resin into gases under influence of heat
and Sodium Hydroxide and conversion of glass fibres into Sodium Silicate salts.

These salts are soluble and can be separated by Nitric Acid and filtered out for
our work.
The details can be found on PAPER.


16
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Method of Direct Recycling of Glass Wool


It has been found that, in many cases the quality of the glass wool is
not severely hindered when it is being disposed.

It means that the material functions well within desirable standards
a huge percentage of time and can be resold directly in the market
without special treatment.

Hence it is desirable to set benchmarks for separating re-usable
glass wool from others which are contaminated or damaged or worn
out to achieve this goal.
17
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Methods for Use in Composites


Glass wool fibres can be used in combination with natural fibres to
enhance their durability and load bearing abilities.

Glass fibres can also be used in combination with synthetic fibres in
an epoxy matrix for high flexural strength and higher melting point.

Glass fibres have been successfully integrated into metallic foils to
improve durability under mechanical loading conditions.
A huge amount of research has been conducted on these topics and some
of them have been cited in the main report.
18
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

Method For Disposal of Glass Wool

Topic of discussion Author Website Year of publishing

Method for Singh, Rao and Asolekars - 2017

effective disposal in Hoxha, Habert, Chevalier, - 2014
landfills Bazanna and Manuel
Pollard, Fowlar, Sollars and - 1991
Perry
Montogomery, Sollars, Perry, - 1990
Barnes and Henderson

19
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED

The main takeaways are:


To counter huge space requirement for low density of this material,
solidification and stabilisation is necessary with binding agents like
clay, cement, fly ash.

Presence of organic materials, dirt, oil, grease and other organic
compounds make it difficult to solidify the material by forming a
coat over the C-S-H gel and preventing it’s hydration.

It is hence desirable to treat these materials by several adsorbents
regarding which studies have been carried out as mentioned before.
20
 LITERATURE REVIEW CONTINUED


It is desirable to have proper safety equipment while dealing with
this material to prevent irritation, allergies etc.

Since heavy metals like Nickel, Cadmium and Lead might be present
in glass wool refuse of industrial sector as contaminants, leachate
action has to be checked compulsorily.

This is done by making embankments, providing impermeable
substrata, placing HDPE sheets to check leakage with drainage lines
and setting up water quality monitoring system.

21
 INFERENCE OF STUDY


The amount of glass wool consumption in India is expected to rise at
a much higher rate than global average and almost entire amount of
disposed glass wool goes to landfill in India.

The systems to segregate undamaged glass wool from others is not
in place so reselling is difficult.
Pyrolysis method cannot be used in a commercial scale just yet
because of requirement of concentrated chemicals and fuel in huge
amount. The cost and environmental impact analysis is incomplete.

22
 INFERENCE OF STUDY CONTINUED


In this condition it is imperative that other methods to recycle glass wool
fibres are explored to prepare for the future.

It is seen that glass fibres are used combined with other fibres in a binding
matrix to form good quality composite materials.

It has also been observed earlier that glass fibre reinforced concrete has
been widely used for a good amount of time for various purposes (mainly
decorative and sometimes structural).
Hence it is possible that glass wool fibres in a concrete matrix can have a
reinforcing affect on the paste when it hardens and improve it’s performance.

23
 OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

The objective is to study the behaviour of concrete mix when reinforced

with glass wool fibres by varying the amount little by little. Nominal
concrete mix proportions of M20 concrete shall be used in our test
(1:1.5:3 by volume) and it’s behaviour shall be studied against expected
target values for strength in normal M20 concrete mix. Since M20
concrete is mostly used for non-structural purposes, short term study
on affects of glass fibre in the mixture shall be enough.

24
 SCOPE OF STUDY


To calculate the compressive strength of concrete paste by varying
the concentration of glass wool used

To calculate the flexural strength of concrete paste by varying the
concentration of glass wool used.

To develop charts and graphs comparing the data regarding
strength and concentration of glass wool.

To compare the strength of our samples against a standard
unreinforced concrete paste and to determine optimum
concentration of glass wool for different requirements.
25
 METHODOLOGY

Preparation of the Concrete Paste


Glass wool is collected from construction demolition sites, landfills,
garbage dumps or suitably old insulation may also be used.

The fibres are separated and added into the normal concrete
mixture by varying the amount from 2% to 8% by volume.

The components are mixed till uniform colour and consistency is
reached along with sufficient amount of water.

Retarders, superplasticisers, plasticisers are not added.
26
 METHODOLOGY CONTINUED

Studying The Compressive Strength


Concrete cube with 15 cm side length is prepared in mould as
recommended in IS 516 by compacting and curing for 28 days.

99% of target strength is achieved in that time span by almost complete
hydration of the active agents. Just before the test the sample is
immersed in water for 2 days and surface is dusted and wiped clean.

The cube is loaded onto the strength testing machine properly and
loaded till the cube fails. The readings are made accordingly for
calculation. This process is same for all the samples in the experiment.
27
 METHODOLOGY CONTINUED

Studying The Flexural Strength


The sample size this time is a cube with a square cross section of edge 15
cm and a length of 70 cm.

This sample is also cured and left to harden for 28 days. It is immersed in
water for 2 days before final test but this time surface preparation for test
is unnecessary.

The sample is loaded onto the machine and pressurised by the rollers till
the lower surface cracks in brittle tensile failure. The data is collected as
recommended in IS 516 for calculation. The test is run exactly similarly for
all the mixture samples.
28
 METHODOLOGY CONTINUED

Flowchart Of Proposed Method

29
 Assumptions

The glass fibres from disposed glass wool shall be beneficial as a reinforcing agent
in cement matrix.

The optimum amount of glass wool for use in concrete mixture lies in the similar
range as in GFRC(2 to 8%).

It is unnecessary to conduct a long term study since the reinforced mixture shall
achieve characteristic strength similar to normal concrete paste within 28 days.

The common steps in methods of load testing are enough and no additional steps
are needed in this study.

The trends observed in M20 concrete mixture shall also be similarly reflected in
lower strength M10 and M15 mixture.

Use of retarders, plasticisers and similar additives are unnecessary and have no
bearing on 28 day strength.

30
Thank You