A Research on Green Concrete
Authors: Neeraj Agarwal, Nikhil Garg
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/9MBZN
Short DOI: https://doi.org/ggrs85
Country: India
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Abstract:
A Green Concrete is a revolutionary topic in the history of concrete industry. This was first invented in Denmark in the year 1998. Green concrete has nothing to do with color. It is a concept of thinking environment into concrete considering every aspect from raw materials manufacture over mixture design to structural design, construction, and service life.
Green concrete is very often also cheap to produce because for example, waste products are used as a partial substitute for cement, charges for the disposal of waste are avoided, energy consumption in production is lower, and durability is greater. Green concrete is a type of concrete which resembles the conventional concrete but the production or usage of such concrete requires minimum amount of energy and causes least harm to the environment. The CO2 emission related to concrete production, is between 0.1 and 0.22 t per tonne of produced concrete.
However, since the total amount of concrete produced is so vast the absolute figures for the environmental impact are quite significant, due to the large amounts of cement and concrete produced. Since concrete is the second most consumed entity after water it accounts for around 5% of the world’s total CO2 emission. The solution to this environmental problem is not to substitute concrete for other materials but to reduce the environmental impact of concrete and cement. The potential environmental benefit to society of being able to build with green concrete is huge. It is realistic to assume that technology can be developed, which can halve the CO2 emission related to concrete production. During the last few decades society has become aware of the deposit problems connected with residual products, and demands, restrictions and taxes have been imposed.
And as it is known that several residual products have properties suited for concrete production, there is a large potential in investigating the possible use of these for concrete production. Well-known residual products such as silica fume and fly ash may be mentioned. The concrete industry realized at an early stage that it is a good idea to be in front with regard to documenting the actual environmental aspects and working on improving the environment rather than being forced to deal with environmental aspects due to demands from authorities, customers and economic effects such as imposed taxes. Furthermore, some companies in concrete industry have recognized that reductions in production costs often go hand in hand with reductions in environmental impacts. Thus, environmental aspects are not only interesting from an ideological point of view, but also from an economic aspect. Green concrete has manifold advantages over the conventional concrete. Since it uses the recycled aggregates and materials, it reduces the extra load in landfills and mitigates the wastage of aggregates. Thus, the net CO2 emission are reduced. The reuse of materials also contributes intensively to economy. Green concrete can be considered elemental to sustainable development since it is eco-friendly itself. Green concrete is being widely used in green building practices.
Keywords: Green concrete, recycled, cement, coarse and fine aggregates
Paper Id: 172
Published On: 2016-07-05
Published In: Volume 4, Issue 4, July-August 2016
Cite This: A Research on Green Concrete - Neeraj Agarwal, Nikhil Garg - IJIRMPS Volume 4, Issue 4, July-August 2016. DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/9MBZN