Reduction of the cement content in mortars made with fine concrete aggregates

This study’s main objective is to show the viability of reducing the cement content of mortars by incorporating fine crushed concrete aggregates whilst simultaneously maintaining a good performance in terms of functional requisites. The advantages of this, if the results are positive, are both environmental and economic: less energy is consumed in cement manufacture and the mortars’ direct costs are lower. To evaluate the hypothetical binding characteristics of concrete fines incorporated in mortars, and thus allow a cement consumption reduction, various standard tests were performed to quantify their most important properties (e.g. mechanical strength, water-related performance, cracking susceptibility, shrinkage) and compare them with those of a reference mortar containing no recycled fines and not reducing the cement content.