Use of White Quartz Sand for High-Strength Concrete

River quartz sand in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is becoming a scarce raw material for the construction industry due to the large volumes of its use with limited resources and the high demand for it in other industries. Taking into account the annually increasing demand for quartz sand, due to the high rate of development of the construction industry in Vietnam, there is a great danger of an early depletion of river quartz sand resources. In addition, excessive extraction of river sand negatively affects the ecology of river waters, as well as the living conditions of people on their shores. Therefore, the search for alternative sources of quartz sand is relevant. It seems promising to explore the possibility of replacing river sand as a necessary raw material component for the production of mortars and concretes for various purposes, including high-strength ones, with natural white quartz sand extracted from quarries, deposits of which are available throughout Vietnam and whose potential reserves are estimated at several billion cubic meters. Sulphate-resistant Portland cement produced by the Vietnamese plant “Luks Cement”, local crushed granite in the form of a mixture of fractions of 5–10 and 10–20 mm, natural river and white quartz sands, as well as a water-reducing polycarboxylate superplasticizer and fine mineral additives were used to partially replace sulfate-resistant Portland cement in the composition of a multicomponent binder in the form of ultra- and nanodispersed silica, fly ash from the thermal power plant “Fa Lai” and quartz powder obtained as a result of fine grinding of white sand. Vietnamese standard TCVN 10306:2014 was used to design concrete mixtures. The strength indicators of the developed concretes were determined using the universal testing machine “Matest” model C089-17N (Italy): compressive strength was determined on cube samples 100х100х100 mm in size at the age of 3, 7 and 28 days of normal hardening, flexural strength – on prism samples 100х100х400 mm in size, tensile splitting strength – on cylinder samples 100х200 mm in size at the age of 28 days. Water absorption of concretes was determined on cube samples 100х100х100 mm in size after 28 days of hardening under normal conditions. The density of the concrete structure was assessed by determining its permeability to chlorine ions using concrete disk samples with a diameter of 100±2 mm and a thickness of 50±3 mm. It has found that an increase in the proportion of white sand in the composition of fine aggregate leads to a decrease in the water absorption of concrete and the permeability of its structure for chloride ions. Therefore, with a 100% replacement of river sand with white sand, the values of water absorption and the total value of electric charges that passed through concrete samples during 6 hours of testing amounted to 0.37% by weight and 72.4 Class, respectively, while for concrete samples containing 100% river sand, these figures are respectively 0.44% by weight and 284.2 Class. At the same time, the highest values of compressive strength, as well as flexural and tensile splitting strength equal to 107.5, 12.2 and 8.07 MPa, respectively, were obtained by testing concrete samples containing 100% by weight of white quartz sand and 1.5% by weight of nanodispersed silica as part of a multicomponent binder. Thus, the possibility of replacing the scarce river sand in Vietnam with white quartz sand has been experimentally confirmed, which makes it possible to obtain concretes with a dense structure and high strength indicators.
Keywords: high-strength concrete, natural quartz sand, fine mineral additives, strength indicators, water absorption, density and permeability of the concrete structure.

O.V. ALEKSANDROVA¹, Candidate of Sciences (Engineering) (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.),
B.I. BULGAKOV¹, Candidate of Sciences (Engineering) (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.),
S.V. FEDOSOV¹, Doctor of Sciences (Engineering) (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.),
NGUYEN DUC VINH QUANG², Candidate of Sciences (Engineering) (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.),
O.B. LYAPIDEVSKAYA¹, Candidate of Sciences (Engineering) (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

¹ National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (26, Yaroslavskoe Highway, Moscow, 129337, Russian Federation)
² Hue Industrial College (70, Nguyen Hue Str., Hue City, Vietnam)

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