CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Structural Performance
In the paper published by K. Wangchuk et al, entitled Green Concrete for Sustainable Solution,
the paper emphasizes on the different materials which can be used as a substitute for the traditional
materials used in construction. They defined the practice of using green concrete as the concept of taking
steps to reduce the environmental impact of producing traditional concrete and also reducing the cost by
recycling several materials. The paper enumerated several materials like Geo-polymer concrete, fly-ash,
ground granulated blast furnace slag, silica fume, rice husk ash, silpozz etc.
On our research paper, we will focus on the materials more commonly located in the Philippine
setting like the recycling of concrete debris as an aggregate, by doing so, using such debris to produce
new concrete conserves natural resources, reduces landfill capacity and also reducing the use of virgin
materials. The paper concluded that the use of green concrete can conserve valuable resources used in
construction. Also, it was concluded that this practice is step towards a more sustainable construction,
wherein virgin materials are conserved therefore reducing the surge of the cost of construction when the
non-renewable materials are depleted.
Advantages
There are several advantages and disadvantages of a green concrete. Many researchers have
proclaimed the profound effects of using green concrete to the environment. Green concrete is typically
made from recycled aggregate that reduces the need for mining and extracting virgin aggregate and
reduces toxic contamination of water supplies from leaching (Lazarus, 2002). The use of recycled
aggregate as well as organic cement substitutes requires less cement in the concrete mixtures, which
reduces the embodied energy and carbon footprint of green concrete due to less need for quarried
materials extraction and fossil fuel processing.
Bandakkanavar (2014) stated that the reduction of the concrete industrys carbon dioxide
emission by 30% and the flexural strength of green concrete are almost equal to that of conventional
concrete. According to Mannan and Ganapathy (2004), using agricultural and industrial wastes as

replacement materials in the concrete industry has dual advantages of cost reduction and a better way of
waste disposal. They also pointed out that the material recovery from the conversion of these wastes into
useful materials benefits both the environment and the conservation of natural resources. Furthermore,
green concrete is also non-combustible, has a slow rate of heat transfer making it a highly effective fire
barrier, and is resilient to flood damage (The Concrete Centre, 2009).
Disadvantages
Despite being an ideal construction material green concrete has its disadvantages. The main
limitation of using green concrete is that the structures which are constructed using green concrete have
less life than the structures constructed by the conventional concrete. As they have less life span they
cannot be used for important structures like dams, bridges, etc. For the use in dams and bridges special
air-entraining agents are mixed in the concrete which increases the overall cost of the structures
(Bandakkanavar, 2014).
However, the water absorption of green concrete is slightly higher than Conventional Concrete.
The use of quarry sand is generally limited due to the high cement paste volume needed to obtain an
adequate workability of concrete. The amount of additional paste content depends on shape, texture,
grading and dust content of the sand. The increase of water demand of concrete mixtures produced by the
adverse effects of shape and texture of quarry sand can be mitigated using a high-range water-reducing
admixture also. Both these remedies increase the cost of construction. (Impact Journals, 2014)
Environmental and Economic Impact
The use of concrete product like green concrete is very conventional because of the fact that it has
a huge impact on our environment. One major problem of deconstructions of building is its demolition
wastes, according to the report of Technology, Information, Forecasting, Assessment Council the total
amount of waste from construction industry is estimated to be 12 to 14.7 million tons per annum.
(Baikerikar, 2014) Due to its growing number of concrete wastes, researchers started using demolition
wastes as a new source of material for green concretes and the cost per unit volume of concrete with
waste material is lower that the corresponding control concrete mixes.
Green concrete should follow reduce, reuse and recycle technique or any two process in the
concrete technology. The three major objective behind green concept in concrete is to reduce greenhouse

gas emission (carbon dioxide emission from cement industry, as one ton of cement manufacturing process
emits one ton of carbon dioxide), secondly to reduce the use of natural resources such as limestone, shale,
clay, natural river sand, natural rocks that are being consume for the development of human mankind that
are not given back to the earth, thirdly use of waste materials in concrete that also prevents the large area
of land that is used for the storage of waste materials that results in the air, land and water
pollution. (Ammasi, 2014) Use of concrete product like green concrete in future will not only reduce the
emission of CO2 in environment and environmental impact but it is also economical to produce. (Impact
Journals, 2014)