Page 57 - New Trends in Green Construction

INCORPORATION OF GFRP WASTE IN MORTARS
Catarina Brazão Farinha, Jorge de Brito, Rosário Veiga
Keywords: mortar, reuse, sustainability, eco-mortars, landfill avoidance 1. Introduction
The consumption of natural resources and energy has increased, following the path of the growth of the world’s population. With the increase in consumption, daily-produced wastes are also increased. The amount of waste produced is no longer sustainable. It is therefore necessary to reduce this amount and, when it is no possible, it is essential to find new solutions to recycle or reuse the wastes, improving the waste management worldwide.
The use of composites in the construction industry is increasing due to their properties such as lightness, high mechanical strength and versatility. Fiber reinforced polymers are an example of the composites that have been more intensively used. However, these composites are thermosetting polymers, therefore they are non-recyclable materials. In this sense, it is essential to find solutions for the waste management of these materials.
This research is focused on the introduction of a GFRP waste from the polymer industry in mortars. The main objective is to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the area of the incorporation of residues in renders.
2. Materials and methods
Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) waste comes from a polymer industry. This waste is composed of glass fibers and polyester resin. The particles used came from the cutting process of floor pieces and the particles used are below 63 μm. GFRP was incorporated as a filler at 10%, 15%, 20% and 50% of the volume of sand. The binder used in these mortars was CEM II/B-L 32.5 N. The mortars have a volumetric ratio of 1:4 (cement: aggregates).
In this research the flexural strength and compressive strength tests were performed, according to European Standard EN 1015-11 (1999) and the water absorption by capillary test, according to EN 1015-18 (2002).
3. Results and conclusions
The incorporation of the GFRP waste improves the workability of mortars, reducing the amount of water/binder ratio for the same workability level (Farinha et al., 2018).
The incorporation of GFRP waste increased the mechanical strength of the mortars (Farinha et al., 2018). In Figure 1, is noticed that the flexural strength increased 155% in the mortar with 50% of GFRP and the compressive strength in 164%, when compared with a reference mortar at 365 days. These mechanical strengths were improved with the incorporation of the waste.
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New Trends in Green Construction