Development of lightweight concrete using industrial waste material, palm kernel shell as lightweight aggregate and its properties

Agricultural industrial wastes produced after extracting palm oil from palm fruits known as palm kernel shell (PKS) are available in large quantities in Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria and other tropical countries. Malaysia is the second largest palm oil producing country in the world. This paper reports the results of an investigation conducted to utilize the PKS as lightweight aggregate to produce grade30 concrete with density of about 1850kg/m³. The properties of both PKS and crushed granite aggregates were compared. The concrete produced using PKS referred to here after as palm kernel shell concrete (PKSC) and its properties were compared with properties of normal weight concrete (NWC) of grade 30 produced using crushed granite aggregates. The fresh and hardened concrete properties such as density, workability, compressive strength of PKSC and NWC were compared. Further, structural behavior through flexural test was investigated. It has been found that PKSC has produced workable concrete and compressive strength of about 35MPa was obtained within 90 days. The addition of 10% silica fume has effect on both workability and strength. The as-cured density of PKSC was found 22% lower than the NWC. Further, the moment capacity of PKSC beams was found higher than NWC beams. In addition, the mode of failure observed in PKSC was ductile compared to the brittle failure of NWC beams.