Concrete produced with recycled aggregate: a durability analysis for structural use

Construction and Demolition waste (CDW) is already used in many European countries as recycled aggregates to produce concrete for structural purposes. In Brazil, its use is still restricted to concretes with no structural function. The consumption of aggregates for the production of concrete is very large, and enabling the use of recycled aggregates in the production of concrete is essential to transform the civil construction industry into a more sustainable one. This work aimed to study the parameters that affect the durability of C30 grade concrete, produced with different types of recycled aggregate. We defined four types of coarse aggregates for carrying out this work: the natural (AN), the concrete (ARCO), the cementitious materials (ARCI) and the treated cementitious materials (ARCI Treated). We adopted 30% substitution content of natural aggregate for recycled aggregates. The treatment of the ARCI aggregate consisted of the application of water and cement solution, aiming to reduce its water absorption capacity. We determine the physical and mechanical characteristics of the concrete, in addition to carrying out indirect measurement tests of durability, by determining the permeability to air, penetration and migration of chloride ions, and determination of the carbonation depth. The results indicate that the concrete using the ARCO type aggregate, produced with 100% crushed concrete, presented characteristics like the reference concrete, indicating the possibility that it can be applied to reinforced concrete structures. As for the ARCI type aggregate, it presented inferior results when compared to the concrete reference for the tests of indirect measurement of durability, however, the concrete displayed good mechanical properties. The concrete produced with the treated ARCI did not perform better than the concrete with ARCI for most of the evaluated characteristics, indicating that the proposed treatment was not adequate.

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