Investigation of characteristic properties of lightweight concrete obtained addition with apricot pip shell

Apricot raising is produced very much as a culture plant in our region. Apricot pipshells which are fabrication waste of this apricot are produced very much. This waste material isevaluated as fuel by this region people.In this study it is supposed that apricot pip shells can behave as normal aggregate inconcrete. Besides, because of pored structures and low specific gravity of this apricot pip shells,they are replaced by definite ratios with normal aggregate and heavyweight concrete is tried toobtain.In this study, normal aggregate was replaced with apricot pip shells as 5%, 10, 15, 20,25, 30, 35 and 40 of the total aggregate volume and density, compressive strength, bendingstrength, SEM and EDX experiments was tested on these concrete samples.After the experimental results, heavyweight concrete was produced with addition 25%apricot pip shells in normal concrete. When apricot pip shells content was increased in concrete,density, compressive strength, and bending strength of concrete was decreased. This reductionwas 7.5%, 18.5, 24.5, 34, 41, 45, 50 and 57 on compressive strength, 3%, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 15 and17 on density and 0.5%, 0.9, 2.6, 4.3, 5.9, 6.9, 7.4 and 17.7 on bending strength of hardenedconcrete, when normal aggregate was replaced with apricot pip shells as 5%, 10, 15, 20, 25,30,35 and 40 respectively.Keywords: Lightweight concrete, apricot pip shell, unit weight, compressivestrength, bending strength.VII