The implementation of scale and steel chips waste as a replacement for raw sand in concrete manufacturing

This research study was motivated by the ecological concerns over the disposal of scale and steel chips waste and scarcity of natural sources of raw sand in many countries. This paper reports the findings of an investigation undertaken on concretes made using scale and steel chips waste from the iron and steel industries as a substitute for sand. The percentage of natural sand replaced with scale and steel chips waste varied from 25% to 100% in terms of weight of sand. The concrete was classified according to the concentration of scale and steel chips waste – ScC-25, ScC-50, ScC-75, ScC-100, SchC-25, SchC-50, SchC-75, and SchC-100. The aim of this study is to investigate the compressive strength properties of mixed concrete shields and to compare the thickness of mixed concrete shields with the thickness of ordinary concrete shields (OC-0) to protect against X-ray radiation. For comparison between the thicknesses of mixed concretes and ordinary concrete, we first determined the thickness of OC-0 corresponding to the thickness of concretes with a scale and steel chips waste admixture using lead equivalent (LE). The experimental results were at once rewarding and promising. The results obtained demonstrate a tendency for the thicknesses of mixed concretes to decrease as the mixing ratio of scale and steel chips waste aggregate increases. The data shows that concrete mixed with steel chips waste have better strength than ordinary concrete, while in the case of concrete mixed with scale waste, an addition of over 25% brought about a reduction in compressive strength.