INVESTIGATING THE SUITABILITY OF PERVIOUS CONCRETE IN IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITIES.

A pervious concrete is a type of porous pavement that can be used as an infiltration process for stormwater management and contains little or no fine aggregates. Pervious concrete offers one of the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly solutions available as permeable pavement in order to control uncontrolled run-off, reduce pollution and replenish groundwater. An important part of this research involves determining infiltration rate through pervious concrete sections. Approach used in the investigation included casting 64 pervious concrete cubes (1: 0:4, 1:1:4, 1:1/2:4, 1:1:5) with varying water/cement ratios. While compressive strength was carried out on the hardened concrete cubes, infiltration rate of water through the sections were determined. The infiltration rate of concrete was tested for concrete cast on different sub-grades and without sub-grade by the application of water at a constant rate to the concrete surface. Also, the properties of the sub-grade were investigated to know the effect of the permeability of concrete. The results obtained show that the water/cement ratio in each mix is a major factor to be considered in order to attain adequate strength as well as sufficient infiltration capacity. The optimum mix ratio is the mix 1:1/2:4 with a water/cement ratio of 0.33 because of its adequate compressive strength (22.89N/mm2) and infiltration capacity (200l/m2/min).