Structural aspects of concrete incorporating recycled coarse aggregates from construction and demolished waste

The study explores the potential of recycling construction and demolition waste into recycled coarse aggregates (RCA) to decrease waste generation and carbon footprint, using a standard compacting effort to calculate compressive strength and particle packing density in a specific cylindrical volume. This study investigates the impact of RCA on concrete’s workability, compressive strength, flexural, split tensile, drying shrinkage, electrical resistivity, rapid chloride penetration, and microstructural characteristics using XRD, SEM, and EDAX. Test findings showed that increasing the replacement percentage beyond the optimum value (RCA 25) had detrimental effects on the strength and microstructure of the concrete. RCA 25 has a higher compressive, flexural, and split tensile strength in the order of 11.56%, 3.06%, and 5.17% respectively compared to reference concrete, as well as 5.23% increase in drying shrinkage, 8.79% higher electrical resistivity, and 4.68% higher resistance to chloride penetration than reference concrete.