Effect of High Density Polyethylene Plastic (HDPE) and W/C Ratio on Fresh and Hardened Properties of Self-Compacting Concrete

In this thesis, the effects of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) aggregates are studied on fresh and hardened properties of self-compacted concrete (SCC). Therefore, 5 different replacement levels of HDPE with coarse aggregate namely 0 %, 5 %, 10 %, 20 %, and 30 % by volume. In addition, superplasticizer (Glenium 27) and silica fume were added to SCC mixtures by 1.7 % and 10 % by weight of binder, respectively. Slump flow, L-box, and V-funnel tests were performed on the 5 different mixtures to study the workability of SCC. Compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength and toughness tests were utilized to study the mechanical properties of the SCC mixtures, while plastic degradation at 100 and 200 °C temperatures, ultra-sonic pulse velocity, and surface cracks observations to determine the durability of the SCC mixtures. After these tests are performed, the results reveal that it is possible to produce self-compacted concrete using HDPE up to 30% replacement level. However, incorporation of HDPE in self-compacted concrete has negative effects on the properties of SCC, decrement in workability, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, UPV, and it causes surface cracks. On the hand, adding HDPE in SCC has positive effects as well, since it increases the ductility of SCC, and reduces the self-weight of concrete which is promising to produce light-weight concrete. Keywords: high density polyethylene (HDPE), self-compacting concrete (SCC), silica fume, workability, mechanical properties, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), flexural strength, toughness.