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. Conventional coarse aggregate namely gravel and fine aggregate is sand in concrete will be used as control. While natural material is coconut shell as course aggregate will be investigate to replace the aggregate in concrete. In this study, three different concrete mixes namely M20, M35 & M50 grade with different combination of natural material CS content in the proportion 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% will be replaced. Six sample specimen will be prepared for each concrete mixes. The parameters will be tested are compressive strength behaviour of cube specimens for 7 & 28 days. The main objective is to encourage the use of these "seemingly‟ waste products as construction materials in low-cost housing. It is also expected to serve the purpose of encouraging housing developers in investing these materials in house construction.

 

Keywords: - Coarse aggregates, Coconut shell, Compressive strength, Concrete cube specimens, Grade 53 Birla cement, M20, M35, M50, CTM, etc.

[1] Olanipekun, E.A., Olusola, K.O. & Ata, O, A comparative study of concrete properties using coconut shell & palm kernel shell as coarse aggregates, Building and Environment 41:297-301,2006.
[2] Gopal Charan Behera, Ranjan Kumar Behera, Coconut Shell as Coarse Aggregate, International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT), vol.2, Issue 6, June – 2013.
[3] Amarnath Yerramala Ramachandrudu C, Properties of Concrete with Coconut Shells as Aggregate Replacement, International Journal of Engineering Inventions, vol.1, Issue 6, October 2012.

[4] Abdulfatah Abubakar and Muhammed Saleh Abubakar, Exploratory Study of Coconut Shell as Coarse Aggregate in Concrete, Journal of Engineering & Applied sciences, vol.3, December 2011.
[5] Daniel Yaw Osei, Experimental assessment on coconut shells as aggregate in concrete, International Journal of Engineering Science Invention, vol. 2, Issue 5, May 2013.

The importance of Cement as a binding material is increased with the onset of the development and the physical renaissance. Due to the highly demand of OPC (for concrete and other purpose of construction) it becames expensive and scarce commodity and this has severely limited the construction of affordable housing in Sudan. This large demand needs another alternative material from two points of view, economically and availability. The objective of this study is to find other alternative binding materials that can be blended with OPC to enhance the properties of fresh and hardened concrete as well as to reduce the economical phase of cement. Three Pozzolanic samples ,represent natural Pozzolana, were brought from different location at Bayoda desert. The samples were grounded firstly and tested for the chemical contents and after that mixed with partial replaced in the ratio of 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% by weight of OPC to form concrete to detect the fresh and hardened properties of the mix. The results recorded were showed that all the three samples are reactive material with amorphous silica and alumina that fulfilled the requirement of the Pozzolanic properties. The better strength tests were reached with sample S2 with OPC, which gave range of developing of compressive strength between 0.83 up to 0.96% in comparison with pure OPC. And gave some enhancement in workability of the mixes comparing to pure OPC mix. The recommendation is that The Quality of Natural Pozzolanic material at Bayoda desert is good and confirm with the standard properties of natural Pozzolana. And can be mixed with OPC in the above proportions to be used as Pozzolanic Cement to enhance some properties of concrete and mortars.

 

Keywords: Pozzolanic materials, Blended Cement, Chemical Composition, Workability, Compressive Strength

[1] "Pozzolanas- An Introduction", Low-Cost Cement- Intermediate Technology Group Ltd, 1994.
[2] "Pozzolanas- ITDG Publications", Low-Cost Cement- Intermediate Technology Group Ltd, 1992.
[3] Mamoun Eltayeb Elmamoun. "Natural pozzolana in Sudan" Ph.D thesis, University of Khartoum 2004.
[4] Neville A.M. "Properties of Concrete". Third Edition. Apitman International Text, 1981.
[5] Cabrera J.G., Jalali S. and Castro Gomes J.P., "Characterization of Cement Microstructure and Concrete Durability Using Fractal Geometry", 12th European Ready Mix Concrete Conference, ERMCO98,Lisbon. Portugal, 1998.

Narta Lagoon, one of the largest and most important coastal ecosystems of Albania, is situated on the south-eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, northwestern part of Vlora district. Water transparency that indicates the level of biological activity can be measured easily using a Secchi disc (Horizontal black disc). Horizontal Secchi disk was applied to measure the Secchi distance in Narta lagoon as a shallow one. The distance at which the disc disappears is recorded as the measure of water visibility. Turbidity which expresses the degree to which light is scattered and absorbed by molecules and particles, is a measure of the degree of the water transparency losing by the presence of suspended particulates including sediments and phytoplankton. Water turbidity is measured in FTU (Formazin Turbidity Units) applying a turbidimeter, type HANNA HI 93703-11. Turbidity parameters are measured every two weeks over a sampling period from March to October 2012, at each of four selected sites differentiated by sea-lagoon water communication. Turbidity and transparency values of the sites varied noticeably exhibiting spatial differences by station as well as changes over the sampling period. The observed variations can be explain by the communication sea-lagoon, fresh water supply as well as by the pollution near the urban areas. Analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) detected significant sites effect at Narta ecosystem (P < 0.01). Water transparency recorded as Secchi distance and turbidity measured in FTU were strongly correlated taken in consideration all selected sites over the sampling period. The relationship between these parameters can be expressed by an inverse power trendline, R2 = 0.94. Classification of Hakanson and Carlson related to the Secchi distance measurements as bioindicator of algal abundance allowed to characterize the selected sites of Narta lagoon by different level of trophic state

 

Keywords: - Narta Lagoon, Secchi disk, Transparency, trophic state, turbidity, turbidimeter, water ecosystem.

[1] EPA Guidance Manual Turbidity Provisions(1999), p 7/1- 7/6
[2] G.C. Holdren(2002).Turbidity and Other Sediment Surrogates Workshop.
[3] D. Chapman and V. Kimstach(1996). Water Quality Assessments, UNESCO/WHO/UNEP, pp79-82.
[4] E.A. Steel and S.Neuhauser(1999).RCSE-TRS No. 023.
[5] R.W. Preisendorfer(1986).Limnol.Oceanogr, 31, 909-926.

Solid particle erosion of polymer composites is a complex surface damage process, strongly affected by material properties and operational conditions. The present research work is undertaken to study the development, characterization and erosion wear performance of two different categories of fibers when reinforced in polymers. One of the two fiber is well known synthetic fiber i.e. glass fiber which is commercially used by many industries and the other fiber will be a natural fiber i.e. banana fiber which will be the new attempt in the present investigation. In both the above cases matrix material will remain epoxy. Attempts have been made to explore the possible use of a natural fiber as filler material in composites. To make an assessment of their (banana fiber) reinforcing potential in terms of wear performance and mechanical properties, various physical, mechanical and wear performance of the composites are studied in details and its comparison with a similar set of composites with glass fiber as a filler material is reported. The reported data are purely extracted from experimental measurement under controlled laboratory conditions. From the performed experiments it can be seen that a banana fiber can successfully replace the glass fiber as far as wear performance in concerned, as the study indicates that erosion wear performance of banana fiber based composites is better than that of the glass fiber reinforced composites. Banana fiber is also having a very low specific gravity, so their composites show very low density as compared to glass fiber reinforced composites. From other mechanical characterization it can be said that, in strength point of view, banana fiber-epoxy composites are not very much behind its counterparts glass fiber-epoxy composites.

 

Key words: - Glass fibre,matrixmaterial,bananafibre,epoxy resin and composite material.

[1] M. Jawaid, H.P.S. Abdul Khalil. "Cellulosic/Synthetic Fiber Reinforced Polymer Hybrid Composites: A Review", Carbohydrate Polymers, Vol. 86, pp. 1–18, 2011.
[2] Gad Marom, Albert Reuveni and Daniel Cohn, "Stiffness Variability and Stress-Dependent Elastic Response of Synthetic Fiber-Reinforced Composites for Biomedical Applications", Biomaterials, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1993.
[3] Jansons, J.O., Glejbol, K., Rytter, J., Aniskevich, A.N., Arnautov, A.K. &Kulakov, V.L. "Effect 0f Water Absorption, Elevated Temperatures And Fatigue on the Mechanical Properties of Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Epoxy Composites for Flexible Risers", Mechanics of Composite Materials, Vol. 38(4), pp.299-310, 2002.
[4] Kutty, S. K. &Nando, G. B. "Effect of Processing Parameters on the Mechanical Properties of Short Kevlar Aramid Fiber-Thermoplastic Polyurethane Composite Plastics", Rubber and Composites Processing and Applications, Vol.19 (2), pp.105-110, 1993.
[5] Cho, J., Chen, J. Y. & Daniel, I. M. "Mechanical Enhancement of Carbon Fiber/Epoxy Composites by Graphite Nanoplatelet Reinforcement", Scriptamaterialia, Vol.56 (8), pp. 685- 688, 2007.