Recycling Old Concrete as Waste Concrete Powder for Use in Pervious Concrete: Effects on Permeability, Strength and Eco-Friendliness

Abstract

The fine portion of crushed old concrete is difficult to be recycled for use in new concrete because it contains old cement paste, which generally has high porosity and low strength. Hence, in practice, the coarse portion is recycled as coarse aggregate and the fine portion is mostly not recycled. Nevertheless, attempts have been made in recent years to recycle the fine portion as waste concrete powder (WCP) by grinding before use. In this research, WCP was used to make pervious concrete. The WCP was added using the paste replacement method (PR method) of replacing an equal volume of cementitious paste. A series of pervious concrete mixes containing 100% recycled coarse aggregate and having different amounts of WCP added were produced for testing of interconnected porosity, water permeability and strength. The results showed that the addition of WCP using the PR method can improve the interconnected porosity by 9% and water permeability by 18%, greatly enhance the strength by 86%, as well as decrease the cement consumption by 10% at the same time. Therefore, the addition of WCP as paste replacement has great potential to be applied to the production of eco-friendly high-performance pervious concrete.