Concrete is one of the most widely used construction materials in the world. However, the production of Portland cement, an essential constituent of concrete, leads to release of significant amount of CO2, a greenhouse gas. Environmental issues are playing an important role in the sustainable development of the cement and concrete industry. There is a need to replace a part of cement with some pozzolonic material to reduce the consumption of cement. Extensive research is going into the use of cement replacement using many waste materials and industrial by-products. Efforts have been made in concrete industry to use waste glass as partial replacement of coarse or fine aggregate and cement. Glass is used in many forms in day-to-day life. It has limited span, and after use it is either stockpiled or sent to landfills. Since glass is non-biodegradable, landfills do not provide an environment-friendly solution. Hence, there is a strong need to utilize waste glass. In this study, finely powdered waste glass is used as a partial replacement of cement and fine aggregate in concrete and the same is compared with conventional concrete. This paper examines the possibility of using glass powder as a partial replacement of cement and fine aggregate. Glass powder is partially replaced at 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% and tested for its compressive strength. The cubes are put to oven heating at 100 °C for different exposures to heat and the residual compressive strength is determined. But after heating, it is found that the residual compressive strength of 20% replacement of glass powder concrete is almost equal to concrete without replacement and hence it can be used as a fire-resistant concrete.

Concrete is the world’s most consumed material and its use is expected to increase substantially. However, the production of concrete is not environment-friendly and therefore significant environmental advantages may be realized if alternate, environment-sensitive materials are identified for use in construction. While cement shows excellent performance as a binder in concrete, its manufacturing is an energy-intensive process. This process consists of mining raw materials, crushing, blending and heating these materials to temperatures of 1500 °C, and finally pulverizing the fired product to create fine cement powder. In addition to consuming large amount of energy, the production of cement accounts for a significant portion of CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases. Atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen by about 30% over the past 200 years. Each year, approximately 111 million tons of controlled waste from household and commercial and industrial waste are disposed of in landfill space. Hence, use of recycled materials in construction is the most attractive option.

Glass is a transparent material produced by melting a mixture of materials such as silica, soda ash and CaCO3 at high temperature, followed by cooling where solidification occurs without crystallization. Glass is widely used in our lives through manufactured products such as sheet glass, bottles, glasswares and vacuum tubing. Glass is an ideal material for recycling. The use of recycled glass saves a lot of energy, and the increasing awareness of glass recycling speeds up the focus on the use of waste glass with different forms in various fields.

Structural Engineering Journal, Concrete, Cement replacement, Sand replacement and Waste glass powder