Brief 

Researchers in Australia have found that a concrete mixture for 3D printing with recycled glass showed higher porosity. In addition, using coarse recycled glass instead of fine recycled glass produced superior results.

 

Insight

Researchers from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, have developed a sustainable 3D concrete printing process for building structures by replacing 50% of natural river sand with different grades of recycled glass. This study is available in the journal Construction and Building Materials.

The researchers analyzed the impact of the orientation of beam-shaped specimen with respect to the printing direction, the correlation between microstructures and mechanical properties, and the effect of glass particles on flexural strength and crack propagation.

With the advent of rapid prototyping technology, the traditional construction industry has leaped into a different dimension of ultrahigh-speed construction, intrinsic designing, and cost-effectiveness. 3D concrete printing (3DCP) technology enables the fabrication of concrete structures through an extrusion-based layer-to-layer deposition.

However, it still inherits the drawbacks of traditional molding-based construction, especially the ones that are not environmentally friendly.Portland cement and natural river sand are key components of traditional construction techniques. However, they also cause carbon dioxide emissions and exploitation of limited natural resources.

What is a More Sustainable Approach for 3DCP?
The answer to this is replacing natural river sand with recycled glass. There are hundreds of metric tonnes of waste glass generated worldwide. Also, the amount of recycled glass is significant in developed countries. Recycling these waste glasses leads to fewer landfills and more energy savings. Additionally, glass’s chemical compositions and physical properties resemble those of the raw materials in concrete, such as river sand and cement.

 

About the Study

The researchers investigated the relationship between the gradation of recycled glass and the performance of 3D-printed concrete structures from the perspectives of microstructures and flexural properties. They prepared five mixture samples with varying matrix to filaments ratios.

 

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