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Research & Reviews: Journal of Engineering and Technology
ISSN: 2319-9873
Civil engineering 2019
International Conference on
Structural and
Civil Engineering Research
O
il palm shells (OPS) are lightweight and for the purpose of waste utilization from oil palm industries this can be used as
coarse aggregate replacing existing granite based aggregate. But the gain of strength depends on bonding characteristics at
microstructural level between constituent materials. In addition, oil palm shell absorbs water 24% higher than that of conventional
aggregate. Hence, oil palm shell should be treated before use in concrete as aggregate to decrease the water absorption. In this
study, microstructural investigation is carried out on lightweight concrete made with treated and untreated oil palm shells. The
internal structure of OPS is having pores with sizes ranging from 0.23 µm to 10 µm. When water repellent coating is coated on the
surface of the OPS as treatment, water repellent coating acts as hydrophobic layer on the aggregate and fills the pores. Micro-
structural analysis is carried out for both the treated and non-treated OPS and bonding between aggregate phase and matrix
phase is observed in both the cases. For observing the morphology and mineralogical properties of these treated and non-treated
OPS aggregates, scanning electron microcopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis is carried out.
Microstructural investigation of treated oil palm
shell lightweight concrete
Swamy nadh Vandanapu and Muthumani Krishnamurthi
Vellore institute of technology, India
JET 2019, Volume:8