Investigation on physical and mechanical properties of manufactured sand concrete

In the context of the shortage of river sand, two types of manufactured sand (MS) were used to partially replace river sand (RS) to design manufactured sand concrete (MSC). A total of 81 specimens were designed for uniaxial compression test and beam flexure test. Two parameters were considered in the tests, including the types of MS (i.e. limestone manufactured sand (LMS), pebble manufactured sand (PMS)) and the MS replacement percentage (i.e., 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). The stress-strain curves of MSC were obtained. The effects of these parameters on the compressive strength, elastic modulus, peak strain, toughness and flexural strength were discussed. Additionally, the sensitivity of particle size distributions to the performance of MSC was evaluated based on the grey correlation analysis. The results showed that compared with river sand concrete (RSC), the rising slope of the stress-strain curves of limestone manufactured sand concrete (LMSC) and pebble manufactured sand concrete (PMSC) were higher, the descending phrase of LMSC were gentle but that of PMSC showed an opposite trend. The physical and mechanical properties of MSC were affected by the MS replacement percentage except the compressive strength of PMSC. When the replacement percentage of LMS and PMS were 50% and 25% respectively, the corresponding performances of LMSC and PMSC were better. In generally, when the replacement percentage of LMS and PMS were same, the comprehensive performance of LMSC were better than that of PMSC. The constitutive model and the equations for mechanical properties were proposed. The influence of particle ranging from 0.15 mm to 0 mm on the performance of MSC was lower than particle ranging from 4.75 mm to 0.15 mm but this influence should not be ignored.