University of Perpetual Help System Laguna

Sto. Niño, City of Biñan, Laguna

College of Engineering & Aviation
Civil Engineering Department

Coconut Fibre, Recycled Plastic Straws and Textile Fabrics

as Thermal Insulator

Nowadays some of us would like to lead a comfortable life. For this, the designing and
construction of some of the residential and important public building is done in such a manner
that they are least effected by heat, cold sound or electricity. By doing so, the efficiency of doing
work also increases. All those materials which minimize or check the passage of heat, cold,
electricity or sound through them are called insulators or insulating materials. Some of them are
successful only to check the transfer of heat, when they are known as heat insulating materials.
In buildings, the transfer of heat through solid materials takes place, mostly by conduction. The
materials used to check the transfer of heat are known as heat insulators or thermal insulators.
These insulators act as a barriers or at least retards the passage of heat (Jr, 2013).

The study focuses in Coconut Coir, Recycled Plastic Straws and Textile Fabrics as a thermal
insulator which will be used in residential as well as in commercial structural works. Plastic is
very useful because it can easily be formed into any complicated shapes. It can be strong and
tough and does not rust nor rot in rain. In spite of its usefulness, plastic is one of the most
difficult material to recycle but easy to be re-used (Manlapas & Banaldia, 2016). The research
aims to study the properties of Coconut coir, used straws and textile fabrics and differentiate
from other conventional product used as thermal insulator for building structures. The proposed
product consists of coconut husk, used plastic straws and fabric textile.

This study promotes the fabrication of an eco-friendly material through recycling of composite
and non-composite waste by-products thus reducing the cost of construction without suffering the
aesthetic value of the housing projects.

REFERENCES:
Baikerikar, A. (2015). A Review on Green Concrete, (November 2014).
Jr, T. U. G. (2013). Investigation on the use of Coco Coir Polypropylene as Thermal Insulator, 59, 13–26.
 University of Perpetual Help System Laguna
Sto. Niño, City of Biñan, Laguna
College of Engineering & Aviation
Civil Engineering Department

Green Concrete as Structural Material

The size of construction industry all over the world is growing at faster rate. The huge
construction growth boosts demand for construction materials. Aggregates are the main
constituent of concrete. Due to continuously mining the availability of aggregates has emerged
problems in recent times. To overcome this problem, there is need to find replacement to some
extent. Nowadays, there is a solution to some extent and the solution is known as “Green
Concrete”. Green concrete has nothing to do with color. It is a concept of thinking environment
into concrete considering every aspect from raw materials manufacture over mix design to
structural design, construction, and service life. Green concrete is also cheap to produce because,
waste products are used as partial substitute for cement, charges for the disposal are avoided,
energy consumption in production is lower, and durability is greater. Waste can be used to
produce new products or can be used as admixtures so that natural resources are used more
efficiently and the environment is protected from waste deposits (Baikerikar, 2015).

Inorganic residual products like stone dust, rushed concrete, marble waste are used as
green aggregates in concrete. Further, by replacing cement with fly ash, micro silica in larger
amounts, to develop new green cements and binding materials, increases the use of alternative
raw materials and alternative fuels by developing or improving cement with low energy
consumption. Considerable research has been carried out on the use of various industrial by-
products and micro-fillers in concrete. The main concern of using pozzolanic wastes was not
only the cost effectiveness but also to improve the properties of concrete, especially durability
(Meyer, n.d.).

This kind of topic summarizes the various efforts underway to improve the environmental
friendliness of concrete to make it suitable as a “Green Building” material.
REFERENCES:

Baikerikar, A. (2015). A Review on Green Concrete, (November 2014).

Meyer, C. (n.d.). Concrete as a Green Building Material.
 University of Perpetual Help System Laguna
Sto. Niño, City of Biñan, Laguna
College of Engineering & Aviation
Civil Engineering Department

Recycled Broken Glass as a coarse aggregate in concrete

Concrete is a composite material composed of sand and gravel, chemically bound together by
hydrated Portland cement (McGregor, 1997). According to McGregor (1997), concrete is the
most used man made construction material, during the last century due to fire resistant, withstand
for both dead and live loads, maximum safety, flexibility in design, exceptional aesthetic
possibilities. According to Jayanandana and Jayasinghe (1998), aggregates include in-between
60 to 75 percentages of the total volume of concrete. Using high proportion of aggregate in
concrete lead to value addition for concrete, because it is inexpensive, economical and govern
the engineering properties (Jayanandana and Jayasinghe, 1998).

Most of the aggregates are obtained from the environment and numerous environmental
problems and natural disasters are occurred due to high extraction of metal and sand. Therefore,
the researchers focused on the future development, while protecting the environment.
Limbachiya et al. (2000) declared that recycled materials can be used as aggregate in new
concrete, which offer a viable route to convert the waste to a valuable resource. Govind (1989)
stated that use of recycled materials as concrete ingredients has become popular because of the
increased environmental legislation such as administrative, legislative support and fiscal
assistance through direct and indirect tax incentives.

Glass can be recycled many times without changing its chemical properties NAHB Research
Centre (2001). Further, NAHB Research Centre (2001) emphasised that due to the low cost,
availability and simple process to recycle, glass concrete applications are significantly applied in
the construction industry. Glass concrete applications are generally defined as concrete products
which are prepared by the use of recycled glasses by replacing natural aggregates that extract
from the environment.