Preliminary Structural Performance Assessment of Recycled Materials for Disaster Reconstruction

Recent natural disasters like the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and the 2011 Joplin Tornados have shown how destructive dynamic loads can be on the built environment. These events left an overwhelming amount of construction and demolition debris behind, requiring the need to find ways of effectively disposing or recycling/reusing. It is proposed that a sustainable approach would be to recycle and reuse the disaster debris for the construction of temporary shelters. Therefore, this study will assess the structural performance of structural wall panels composed of recycled materials. The work will include the evaluation of different concrete mix designs with varying aggregate replacement including: recycled concrete, steel shavings and crumb rubber. The research begins with the performance assessment of recycled concrete. Lateral load tests were performed on shear wall panels to measure the shear capacity of the experimental mix. In addition, the compressive strength and toughness was evaluated and compared. The preliminary results showed that although the experimental mix showed a significantly lower shear capacity, 123.2 kN (27.7 kips), compared to the shear capacity, 180.2 kN (40.5 kips), of the control mix, it was greater than shear demand, 93.9 kN (21.1kips). The experimental mix also displayed reduced compressive strength.