• Alengaram, U. Johnson
• Hamidian, Mohammad Reza
• Shafigh, Payam
• Jumaat, Mohd Zamin

Abstract

The agricultural industry is a source of many types of solid waste. For instance, oil palm shell (OPS), is a waste from the palm oil industry and is produced in enormous quantities in tropical countries. This waste material is considered to be a major problem in terms of pollution, while, on the other hand, normal concrete needs a large amount of the raw materials as coarse and fine aggregate. Due to the limitations of raw materials, the use of normal aggregate can have a negative effect on the environment. In addition, the high self-weight of raw aggregate in normal concrete is considered to be another disadvantage of this type of concrete for the construction of structural members. This paper presents a novel sustainable composite column by using of lightweight OPS concrete instead of conventional aggregate concrete. Composite columns in the form of concrete filled steel tubes (CFTs) are acknowledged to be a highly efficient group of columns with wide usage in different types of structure.<br/><br/>In this study, the axial compressive behaviour of CFT columns constructed with conventional normal weight and OPS lightweight concretes was investigated. In the new composite column, 22% of the total volume of the composite was replaced with waste OPS aggregate. The test results showed that the CFT column containing OPS lightweight concrete had the same ultimate axial load capacity as the CFT column with conventional concrete. This new green composite column is about 15% lighter than a normal CFT column, with significantly higher specific energy absorption, structural efficiency and flexibility.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• steel
• biological composite