Structural lightweight aggregate concrete using two types of waste from the palm oil industry as aggregate

Huge quantities of raw materials are used in making concrete. Due to the limitations of natural materials the use of waste and by-product materials in concrete can eliminate the negative impact of concrete on the environment. To produce a cleaner and greener concrete two waste materials from the palm oil industry were used as coarse and fine aggregates. For this purpose normal sand was replaced with oil-palm-boiler clinker (OPBC) sand from 0 to 50% in oil palm shell (OPS) lightweight aggregate concrete. Properties, including workability, different types of density, compressive strength in different curing regimes, splitting tensile and flexural strengths, stress–strain curve, modulus of elasticity, water absorption and drying shrinkage strain of green lightweight concretes, were measured and discussed. The results showed that it is possible to produce environmentally-friendly structural lightweight concrete by incorporating high volume waste lightweight aggregates from the palm oil industry.