Effect of Coconut Husk on the Properties of Concrete

Author(s):
Ajay Kumar Sharma , ITL; Susheel Kumar Gupta, SWAMI VIVEKANADND UNIVERSITY, SAGAR
(M.P.)

Concrete is the premier construction material around the world and is most widely used in all
types of construction works, including infrastructure, low and high-rise buildings, and
domestic developments. It is a man-made product, essentially consisting of a mixture of
cement, aggregates, water and admixture(s). Inert granular materials such as sand, crushed
stone or gravel form the major part of the aggregates. Traditionally aggregates have been
readily available at economic prices and of qualities to suit all purposes. But, the continued
extensive extraction use of aggregates from natural resources has been questioned because
of the depletion of quality primary aggregates and greater awareness of environmental
protection. In light of this, the non-availability of natural resources to future generations has
also been realized. Different alternative waste materials and industrial by products such as
fly ash, bottom ash, recycled aggregates, foundry sand, china clay sand, crumb rubber, glass
were replaced with natural aggregate and investigated properties of the concretes. Apart from
above mentioned waste materials and industrial by products, few studies identified that
coconut shells, the agricultural by product can also be used as aggregate in concrete. Thus,
the aim of this work is to provide more data on the strengths of coconut shell concretes at
different coconut shells (CS) replacements and study the transport properties of concrete with
coconut shells as coarse aggregate replacement. The concrete obtained using coconut shell
aggregates satisfies the minimum requirements of concrete. Concrete using coconut shell
aggregates resulted in acceptable strength required for structural concrete. Coconut shell may
offer itself as a coarse aggregate as well as a potential construction material in the field of
construction industries and this would solve the environmental problem of reducing the
generation of solid wastes simultaneously. The coconut shell cement composite is compatible,
and no pre-treatment is required. Coconut shell concrete has better workability because of
the smooth surface on one side of the shells. The impact resistance of coconut shell concrete
is high when compared with conventional concrete. Moisture retaining and water absorbing
capacity of coconut shell are more compared to conventional aggregate. The amount of
cement content may be more when coconut shell are used as an aggregate in the production
of concrete compared to conventional aggregate concrete. The presence of sugar in the
coconut shells as long as it is not in a free sugar form, will not affect the setting and strength
of concrete.

http://ijsrd.com/Article.php?manuscript=IJSRDV4I120564

Use of Coconut Husk Fiber for Improved Compressive and Flexural Strength of Concrete

Anthony Nkem Ede and Joshua Olaoluwa Agbede

Rapid crack propagation, brittle mode of failure and increased overload are common in concrete
structures due to the low tensile strength of concrete. Although conventional steel reinforced concrete
is the most popular method developed to reduce such problems, it is rather becoming expensive in
terms of its costs and sustainability issues. Because of the huge capital investment to run the steel
industry, many manufacturers in the developing nations try to cut corners by reducing the quality of
steel thereby reducing the strength. This has led to a lot of challenges including building collapse
accompanied by devastating economic and human loss. For these drawbacks, the development of
contemporary concrete technologies such as eco-friendly and affordable coconut fiber reinforced
concrete occurred.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305985435_Use_of_Coconut_Husk_Fiber_for_Improved_Co
mpressive_and_Flexural_Strength_of_Concrete

The Use of Coconut Fibre in the Production of Structural Lightweight

Concrete

Noor Md. Sadiqul Hasan, Habibur Rahman Sobuz, Md. Shiblee Sayed and Md. Saiful Islam

The high cost of conventional construction materials is a dominating factor affecting housing
system around the world. This has necessitated research work into alternative materials in
the construction field. The aim of this study was to investigate experimentation on physical
and mechanical characteristics of concrete produced using chopped coconut fibres
composites incorporating different volume percentage of fibres 1.0, 3.0, 5.0 and 7.0
subjected to static loading. Prisms size of 100x100x300 mm and cubes having dimension of
100x100x100 mm were cast from the same batches of concrete. For coconut fibre, micro
structural analysis (scanning electron microscopy) test was conducted in the laboratory to
get a better understanding of the bonding behaviour of fibres. Chemically treated coir fibre
reinforced specimens yielded better mechanical properties compared to the raw ones. The
results of the tests showed that the compressive strength of the concrete decreased as the
fibres volume percentage of the coconut increased in the concrete mix. Experimental results
also demonstrated that the coconut fibre concrete performed satisfactorily on the growth of
cracks, crack widths compared with conventional concrete. Finally, it is concluded that the
use of coconut fibre has great potential in the production of structural lightweight concrete
especially in the construction of low-cost concrete structures.

http://www.scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jas.2012.831.839