Initially, in India, the construction industry and the engineers did not take advantage of research and scientific developments in concrete construction to its fullest extent due to the lack of education and training facilities in concrete technology. Due to the lack of knowledge and skill of supervisors and construction contractors, there is a wrong notion that the greater the quantity of cement in concrete, the better will be the quality and strength of concrete. This paper reports the results of an investigation carried out to understand the effect of chloride and sulphate attack on concrete. It was observed that several million tons of waste glass are generated annually worldwide due to the rapid growth of population, improvement in the standard of living, industrialization and urbanization. Hence utilization of waste glass has become a critical issue worldwide. Concrete produced by replacing cement with waste Glass Powder (GP) in different proportions was studied. It was found that the strength properties were affected when concrete was subjected to attack, and higher resistance to attack was obtained when 20% cement was replaced with waste glass.

Till 1970s, the durability of concrete was rarely a concern to the community at large, design professionals, builders, developers or government specifiers in particular. All this changed through into the 1980s with phrases such as ‘concrete cancer’ becoming commonplace in media and society (Nathan et al., 2008).

Concrete is the most widely used man-made construction material in the world, and is second only to water as the most utilized substance on the planet. It is obtained by mixing cementitious materials, water and aggregates (and sometimes admixtures) in required proportions. The mixture when placed in forms and allowed to cure hardens into a rocklike mass known as concrete. The hardening is caused by chemical reaction between water and cement; it continues for a long time and consequently the concrete grows stronger with age. The hardened concrete may also be considered as an artificial stone in which the voids of larger particles (coarse aggregate) are filled by the smaller particles (fine aggregate) and the voids of fine aggregates are filled with cement. In a concrete mix, the cementitious material and water form a paste called cement-water paste, which in addition to filling the voids of fine aggregate, coats the surface of fine and coarse aggregates and binds them together as it cures, thereby cementing the particles of the aggregates together in a compact mass.

The strength, durability and other characteristics of concrete depend upon the properties of its ingredients, on the proportions of mix, the method of compaction and other controls during placing, compaction and curing (Rashid et al., 2008).

The popularity of the concrete is due to the fact that from the common ingredients, it is possible to tailor the properties of concrete to meet the demands of any particular situation. The advances in concrete technology have paved the way to make the best use of locally available materials by judicious mix proportioning and proper workmanship, so as to produce concrete satisfying performance requirements (Yixin et al., 2000).

Structural Engineering Journal, Sodium chloride, Magnesium sulphate, Glass Powder (GP), Chloride attack,
Sulphate attack, Concrete.