Alternate construction material for overcome sand scarcity

Alternate construction material for overcome sand scarcity             Rapid deployment of sand from river leads to many environmental problems and also regeneration of sand also very less. It causes huge scarcity of sand and price of sand increase manifold. At the same time we have to meet the requirement of fine aggregate needs in construction industry. In this situation we need to focus on alternate construction materials other than river sand as a fine aggregate. Here we discuss some of materials may use fully of certain percentage as fine aggregate. M-Sand             Manufacturing sand is most commonly used material for replacing the river sand. It is manufactured by crushing of blue metal in to fine aggregate size. It has good texture and high compressive strength. Easily binding with cement and posses’ good strength and Compressive strength is check using casting of mortar cube and test in compressive testing machine. The strength of the cube is more or less same as river mortar cube. Pebble stone Pebble stone is available in river bed and this stone is not suitable for course aggregate because of round shape, flaky and has less crushing value. Instead of using the pebble stone as course aggregate we can use this as fine aggregate after crushing in to fine aggregate size. It has good texture so easily combined with cement and makes good mortar. Foundry sand             In foundry the green sand (available in sea) is used for making mould with mixing of bentonite and sodium silicate. This mould is not reusable after casting; enormous of sand is dumped in land and wasted. It has high silica content so we can use this material as fine aggregate in bricks or paver blocks. It is not suitable for concrete work because of less strength. P-Sand             Plastic sand is another form of M-Sand; only difference is size and sieving method. This is best suitable for plastering purpose.