Flexural Behaviour of Lightweight Eco-friendly Concrete

Concrete is a very vital construction material and the demand for concrete is increasing rapidly day by day and production of concrete also leads to the production of carbon dioxide which badly effect the environment, causing air pollution. Cement and Concrete producing industries account for 2nd largest carbon dioxide producers in the world. A larger part of concrete is occupied by coarse aggregate and because of this usage of coarse aggregate is also increasing. To limit the usage of coarse aggregate we are required to search for alternate material that can partially replace coarse aggregate and is also eco-friendly so that the production of carbon dioxide can also be reduced. Coconut Shell is one of the materials that can be eco-friendly and at the same time partially replace the coarse aggregate. So, in this research work, we tried to find out the flexural strength of concrete using a waste material i.e., coconut shell as a partial replacement of coarse aggregate, and the effect of coconut fibre on the flexural strength of concrete is also analyzed by mixing coconut fibres in four different proportions of 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2% of cement’s weight in the concrete mix. Concrete beams using crushed coconut shell and coconut fibre were casted and tested under flexure and the result is compared with the control set beam which is casted by replacing 10% of coarse aggregate with crushed coconut shell and without using coconut fibre and tested under flexure. It was noted that the slump value of concrete keeps on decreasing with an increase in the percentage of coconut fibre in concrete. The test result shows that the flexural strength of plain concrete beam at 28 days when tested under flexure increased up to an extent and then kept on www.jera.co.in ISSN2583-3987 decreasing with an increase in the percentage of coconut fibre. The Optimum content of coconut fibre came out to be between 1.0 % and 1.5% of the cement’s weight.