The Effectiveness of Glass as an Alternative Component for Concrete

Hollow Blocks Manufacturing

A RESEARCH PROJECT
Presented to
Engr. Howell Kim Ventosa

Submitted by
CAMSA, NUR-EMRHAN I.
LLAGAS, RENZ ALLEN A.
MONTUYA, KARL TRISTAN B.
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 TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE PHILIPPINES - MANILA

CHAPTER I
I. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

A hollow concrete block is a block made of concrete that has hollow spaces between its

walls. It is used to build different types of walls for different purposes like retaining walls,

decorative walls, classic walls, etc. hollow blocks are made of the same ingredients

used in poured concrete walls. Gravel, sand, Portland cement, and water are used as

ingredients. Although the usage of concrete hollow blocks is considered to be eco-

friendly in the field of engineering and infrastructure, its manufacturing is known to

cause some environmental problems. Sand mining causes land to be lost due to coastal

or river erosion, lowers the water table, and reduces the amount of sediment supply.

The volume being removed is having a significant impact on rivers, deltas, and coastal

and marine ecosystems. Used glass bottles such as beer bottles, soft drinks, etc., prove

to be useless and are just considered as trash that anyone can see on the streets or

slums. In this research, the researchers aims to address the two issues and produce a

much effective type of CHB that will use a shattered glass as its components.
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CHAPTER II

SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS

This experimental study aimed to design a concrete mixture with recycled glass bottles as an
alternative fine aggregates in order to help and contribute to the industry in saving the
environment, to encourage the government to find solutions regarding the disposal to landfills of
waste materials and provide new knowledge to the contractors and developers on how to
improve the construction industry methods and services by using recycled glass bottles, and to
sustain good product performance and meet recycling goals. Re use of the materials which
otherwise will burden the environment and will be occupying scarce land resource. Second it
minimizes the degradation of land and the environment as a result of comparatively less
digging. One major advantage of recycling glass bottles is environment friendly causing of less
garbage that will be thrown in the dump site area. Although the impact of this procedure may not
be that noticeable at present , We as a researchers believe that in the near future this will be
help not only for the environment but also in the construction industry.
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1. According to Batayne et al. (2020) The demand for concrete in construction has increase due
to the growth of the community and economy. Sand,gravel, and stone are used as
aggregates.Therefore, studies are being conducted on alternative materials that can replace
natural resources as building materials. They discovered that up to 20% waste glass as a
substitute for fine aggregates performed best when studied utilizing recycled resources such as
waste glass and broken concrete as a fraction of aggregates of 0-20% in the concrete mix. In
contrast with the use of crushed concrete as a substitute for coarse aggregates, the
compressive strength decreased when the replacement amount was increased. Waste glass
has competency to use as raw materials in building construction.One way to recycle the glass
products is to crush them into cullets and mix the cullets into cement as fil-er aggregate.

2. According to Gary Bell (2016) the combination may contain any appropriate amount of glass.
The glass is present in one embodiment in amounts ranging from 5 to 45% by weight of the
combination, more preferably in amounts ranging from 10 to 45% by weight of the mixture. It
has been discovered that glass in a concrete mixture degrades when it comes into touch with
cement. The degradation occurs as a result of the reaction between the glass's silica
component and the cement's alkali components. Other siliceous materials and cement are
known to undergo similar reactions in the art. It is known to add a component such as
pulverized fuel ash (PFA), which is available as a byproduct, to counteract the alkali-silica
reactions.It has been discovered that glass can be present in the combination at up to 45% by
weight without degrading due to the alkali-silica reaction. As a result, with up to 45% glass
content, the concrete block can be made without the inclusion of furnace ash.

3. According to Tomas U. Ganiron Jr. (2022) Glass is produced in many forms, including
packaging of container glass (bottles,jars) flat glass, bulb glass, etc. All of which have a limited
life in the form they are produced and need to be reused/recycled in order to avoid
environmental problems that would be created if they were to be stockpiled or sent to landfill.
Most of the glass produced as an concrete hollow blocks. The efficiency of this process
depends on the method of collecting and sorting glass. Recycling is the most promising waste
management process for the disposal of materials in the waste stream.Many virgin and waste
materials are widely used in concrete composites as substitute materials for construction. The
recycled glasses bottles can make the hollow blocks stronger and it is better to use when we
are planning to build a house and thinking about the materials that we need to use.
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4. According to Adjei et al (2016). Glass is one of the most commonly used materials in our daily
lives because it combines transparency, durability, chemical resistance, and high compressive
strength. As a result, enormous amounts of waste glass are unavoidable. As a result, making
better use of these resources and enhancing recycling is a major problem for both industry and
academia. The goal of this work was to present an alternative to recycling waste glass for the
creation of hollow blocks utilizing the kiln-casting technique based on this. The complete
procedure, beginning with the design of the blocks and concluding with testing for the
characterization of the blocks created, was reported for this. The effect of kiln-casting settings
on block characteristics was explored. SEM, optical microscopy, and X-ray analysis were used
to characterize the produced blocks.Higher process temperatures and longer exposure times
result in better particle fusion and higher crystallinity of the glass, resulting in a loss of
transparency and brightness of the blocks but promoting a smoother and more uniform surface
and an increase in compressive strength.

5.According to N Kumar (2020) unique hollow concrete block was created using a m30 concrete
mix that included rice husk ash as a pozzolanic substitute for cement and glass fiber as a
reinforcing element. Concrete's brittle ness and low tensile strength are well known
disadvantages. Because of the need for cement, the ecological impact of concrete production is
also considerable. The addition of siliceous materials with pozzolanic properties, such as rice
husk ash, can replace cement and result in significant financial and environmental savings.
Glass fibers are added to concrete to prevent the formation of micro cracks and to inhibit water
absorption from the surrounding environment, hence increasing the longevity of the concrete. A
rigorous experimental research was carried out to evaluate how the characteristics of concrete
changed with the above changes. The best mix found by the experiments was then casted into
hollow concrete blocks. The load capacity test on a wall made with the hollow concrete blocks
with the aforementioned additives was used to evaluate the performance of the hollow concrete
blocks with the aforementioned additives. It was compared to the performance of standard
commercially available blocks used to build walls.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772912523000052#bibliog0005
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666498420300569
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950061821032773
[4] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3085
[5] Chandra Paul, S., Šavija, B., & Babafemi, A. J. (2018). A comprehensive review on
mechanical and durability properties of cement-based materials containing waste recycled
glass. Journal of Cleaner Production, 198, 891-906.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.095
 TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE PHILIPPINES - MANILA

[6] Sudharsan N., Palanisamy T., & Subhash C. (2017). Environmental sustainability of waste
glass as a valuable construction material – A critical review. Eco. Env. & Cons. 24 (February
Suppl.) : 2018; pp. (S335-S342)
[7] Lu, J.X. & Poon, C.S. (2018) Improvement of early-age properties for glass-cement mortar
by adding nanosilica. Cement and Concrete Composites 89 (2018) 18-30.
[8] Dubey, S., Thakur, C.S., & Sahu, S., (2021) Strengthening of Plain Cement Concrete with
Glass Fibre
[9] Tamanna, N., Tuladhar, R., Sutan, N.M., Lee, D.S.T., & Yakub, I. (2016). Pozzolanic
Properties of Glass Powder in Cement Paste. Journal of Civil Engineering, Science and
Technology.
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CHAPTER III
A 2020 study, by Harrison et al., showed that the slump is reduced when more waste glass is
used in place of natural sand. Despite being smooth, glass possesses a specific gravity that is
less than sand, which is what explains how the samples were lighter in weight. According to the
authors, this is because glass particles may be compacted more tightly than sand particles
since they are finer.

Another study was done in 2023 by Brito et al., the results were presented as the typical
compressive strength of five blocks depending on the firing sequence (T1-B, T2-B, and T3-B).
Stress per cross-sectional region was used for determining the strength of compression. Thus,
for T1-B, T2-B, and T3-B, the average compressive strengths were 5.0 MPa (50,986 kgf/cm2),
5.8 MPa (59,144 kgf/cm2), and 6.2 MPa (63,222 kgf/cm2), respectively. It was clear to see that
when the processing temperature rose, the compressive strength also did. Analysis of variance
(ANOVA) demonstrated the statistical significance of this spike. These findings support those
from earlier characterizations (XRD, SEM, OM), which showed that higher temperatures
improved fiberglass particle fusion and increased the crystallinity of the blocks, which in turn
increased the strength of the material. It is significant to note the fact that it is challenging to
contrast the achieved compressive strength with the strength necessary by specifications when
the structure of the generated blocks differs from standardized geometries for hollow blocks.
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CHAPTER IV

Conclusions and Recommendations

[...] the performance of concrete or mortar incorporating glass aggregates (GA) to replace

natural aggregates has many advantages (Lu & Poon, 2018). This study dealt with two major

problems that are currently proliferating not just in the construction industry but also in our

environment, the first one being the inquiry for a more sustainable and cleaner alternatives for

CHB or its components, and the disposal of the unwanted glass wastes that, due to it being

large in amount, is seen all over the environment may it be in the streets, the beach, local

households, etc. After the examining of the literature related to this research, however, it is

clearly shown that large quantities of glass waste in the environment can actually be used as an

additional component for CHB. In actual fact, this does not only contribute to the concrete

sample's strength, but also to the concrete's resistivity (Matos et al., 2016), sulfate resistance

(Wang, 2009), lead leaching (Romero et al., 2016), etc. (Matos et al., 2016). It has also been

shown that smaller particle size of the ground glass resulted in a higher re-activity of glass, a

higher compressive strength in concrete as well as lower expansion (Sudharsan et al., 2018).

However, there are still several aspects of glass waste usage as admixture for concrete that is

recommended to be further studied on in order to determine the method's economical feasibility

and practicality as well as its safety, namely, addressing the variability of waste recycled glass

and its effect on concrete properties, combined use of waste recycled glass as cement and

aggregate replacement, optimization of mixture properties, life cycle analysis and lifecycle

costing (Suvash et al., 2016). Furthermore, this research set light on many possibilities in terms
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of using glass and related substances in construction. Thus, further research is recommended

to ensure the relevance of the data and results discussed in this study.