Abstract:
The environment and ecological systems are suspected of serious drawbacks as a result of the over-extraction of river sand for construction activities. An attempt was made in this research on completely replacing river
sand in lime-cement masonry mortars with blended sands comprised of
manufactured sand and offshore sand. The S and N types (as defined in
the standards) were selected for producing masonry mortars with different
sand contents. For each type, five mortars were prepared to contain river
sand alone (reference mortar), manufactured sand alone, and three
blended sands (replacing manufactured sand by offshore sand at 25%,
50%, and 75%). Because of the dominant roles of particle angularity, surface roughness, and gradation of the alternatives, the performance of mortars was evaluated and compared based on these sand characteristics.
Furthermore, the level of statistical significance of the experiment results
was analyzed from a single factor one-way ANOVA test. Outcomes of this
research revealed that the blended sands and manufactured sand declined
the fresh state performance of mortars than the river sand mortars.
However, most of the stiffened and durability properties of alternative mortars were significantly advanced than the reference mortars.
