Utilisation of Foundry Sand in Concrete - A Review

Abstract

A Rise in urbanization and industrialization has led to over utilization of natural river sand, which affects environmental sustainability. Nowadays, due to the massive demand of river sand, M-sand has been replaced effectively and being used in the construction industry. Although M-Sand is desirably used, it can lead to more water and cement requirement to achieve the expected workability which in turn increases the cost of construction. Thus as an alternative solution, industrial by-product like waste foundry sand can be used. When sand can no-longer be reused in the foundry, it is known as waste foundry sand. As it is discarded in a landfill, it tends to pose several environmental impacts. In order to reduce the disposal problem, waste foundry sand is reused in engineering applications. In this paper, various strength and durability properties have been studied, and an overview of some of the research works on the utilization of waste foundry sand in concrete were given. Fine aggregate is replaced with different proportions of waste foundry sand (0-100%). From the results obtained, the optimum % replacement of foundry sand is found to be in the range of 20% to 40% based on the grade of concrete.