ABSTRACT

In India a great amount of Municipal Solid wastes and Agricultural wastes is produced everyday. Reuse of such waste materials in concrete construction is happening nowadays. But they are in the form of Aggregates, Cement (for example fly ash, brick wastes, crusher powder, etc.). Similarly only small quantity of work is concentrated on composites, particularly on natural waste materials. In many smaller towns and villages in the southern parts of India, materials such as rice husk, coir, nylon fibre and sugarcane stems result in the form of fibres and granular materials as waste. Such materials were chosen and properly treated and shaped in the form of fibres or granules and introduced in concrete beams in critical zones for accessing the properties by testing under middle third loading. The materials used in this investigation were: ordinary Portland cement, coarse aggregate of crushed rock with a maximum size of 20 mm, fine aggregate of clean river sand and portable water. A 8 mm dia HYSD bars were used as main reinforcement. A 6 mm dia MS bars were used as stirrups. Commercially used MS wires (binding wires) were used as steel fibres. Locally available materials such as nylon, plastic, tyre, coconut coir, sugarcane bagasse, rice husk were taken from the waste stream and converted in to fibres of required length and diameter. The detailed properties are given in subsequent contents (10).