EXPERIMENTAL AND PROBABILISTIC ASSESSMENT OF CONCRETE INCORPORATING EXPANDED POLYSTYRENE (EPS) WASTE AT ELEVATED TEMPERATURES

📄 Project Abstract

This study is to investigate the effects of Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) as a partial replacement for coarse aggregates at 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, and 50% at elevated temperatures of Room Temperature (280C), 200, 400, 600, and 800 for the duration of 2 hrs each. Compressive strength and flexural strength were carried out on concrete cubes of size 150mm × 150mm × 150mm and concrete beams of size 150mm × 150mm × 750mm respectively. The experimental results shows that the increase in EPS content as well as the increase in temperature causes decrease in the strength of concrete at room temperature, while inclusion of EPS from 5% to 15% increased the resistance of concrete to heat better than the control at a maximum temperature of 4000C. This implied that the trapped air within the closed cells of EPS reduces the flow of heat, thereby reducing loss of moisture from the concrete but the optimum performance of EPS in concrete lies at 10% EPS content at a temperature of ...