Comparitive study of foundry sand and arecanut husk ash on concrete members

Foundry sand is the waste sand which is obtained when the sand can no longer be used in the metal foundries. Foundries successfully recycle and reuse the sand many times in casting process. Generation of waste foundry sand, by-product of metal casting industries causes environmental problems because of its improper disposal. Thus, its usage in building material, construction and in other fields is essential for reduction of environmental problems. As per the previous work the foundry sand is found to increase the compression criteria of the concrete but the split tensile strength is found to be decreased. In our project work an attempt is made to increase the split tensile strength of the concrete by the partial replacement of the cement with the Areca nut husk ash and replacement of fine aggregate with the foundry sand. The assumption is considered that the Areca nut ash consists of fibrous properties and as it is unutilized it is available in a very large quantity leading to the formation of large bio waste, hence the Areca nut husk can be used for good results. This work is conducted to investigate the performance of concrete discarded foundry sand as a replacement of fine aggregate and cement with partial replacement of Areca nut husk ash. The cement is partially replaced with the percentages of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20. Compressive strength was increased from 16.8N/mm² to 19.22N/mm² for 7 days of curing and compressive strength is increased 21.33N/mm² to 21.55N/mm² that is upto 10% replacement of AHA for 28 days of curing and it was seen that the tensile property is decreased from 1.98N/mm2 to 1.83 N/mm2 for 7days of curing and relatively the tensile strength is increased from2.05 N/mm2 to 2.26 N/mm2 for 28days of curing, Thus increasing the tensile property of the concrete. This gives lesser strength than that of conventional concrete.