Evaluation of strength and durability of lean mortar mixes containing marble waste Rajendra Kumar Khyaliya, K.I. Syed Ahmed Kabeer ⇑ , Ashok Kumar Vyas Department of Civil Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur 302017, India highlights  Marble waste was evaluated as a potential substitute of river sand in mortars.  Marble waste can significantly accelerate hydration process.  25% of sand can be substituted by marble waste when mortars are exposed to an aggressive environment. article info Article history: Received 12 February 2017 Received in revised form 27 April 2017 Accepted 29 April 2017 Keywords: Mortar Marble powder Water absorption Drying shrinkage Sulphate attack abstract This study was carried out to test the suitability of marble waste as a fine aggregate in lean mortar mixes. Marble waste was crushed in the form of fine aggregate, then it was substituted in place of river sand from 0% to 100% by volume. It was found that by incorporation of marble waste from 25% to 50%, max- imum benefits could be derived in terms of reduced water requirement, improved mechanical perfor- mance and enhanced durability. At 50% substitution the water requirement to attain the required workability fell by 6% and compressive strength increased from 2.84 MPa to 7.04 MPa. When exposed to 5% sodium sulphate and sulphuric acid solutions, the mortar mix with 25% marble waste and 75% of river sand performed at par with control mortar. In view of these results it was concluded that marble waste can be safely used in both aggressive and non-aggressive environments by replacing river sand by 25% and 50% respectively in lean mortar mixes. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Among the stones like granite, limestone and sandstone, marble is one of the most important dimension stone quarried in India. The state of Rajasthan has about 64% of marble resources of India and generated 267 million dollars’ worth of marble during the year 2012–13 [1]. On the flip side, this mega industry generates waste of alarming amounts. During mining of marble, about 60% of the rock is lost as waste in the form of blocks of irregular size and shape [2–4]. Apart from the dimension stone industry, the construction industry also consumes a significant quantity of natural resources. Aggregates which form 70% of the concrete/mortar volume, require 5–7.5 billion tonnes to be quarried annually [5]. Hence instead of producing aggregates and minerals from virgin sources, it is more than appropriate to evaluate the utilization of the waste product from one mega industry into another. Attempts have been made to utilize marble waste in production of concrete and mortars. When marble powder finer than 2 mm was used to replace cement, an incorporation of more than 10% led to fall in mechanical properties [6]. When marble slurry was used as cement in concrete, plasticizer and super-plasticizer had to be used to maintain the desired slump corresponding mixes. The bulk density of concrete reduced with increase in substitution. Modulus of elasticity too followed the same trend. The variations in UPV were insignificant for any change in substitution [7]. In case of mortars, mixes with 10% substitution of cement reached the tar- get strengths [4]. This was because, for higher substitutions, the marble powder did not take part in the hydration process but acted only as a filler agent. This pore filling effect which resulted in increase in compressive strength was significant in a higher water cement ratio of 0.5 when compared to 0.4 [8]. In addition to filling pores, marble increased the viscosity of concrete mixes [9]. On the durability front, due to the pore filling effect fine marble powder, at 10% substitution of cement in concrete, reduced the extent of migration of harmful ions further into the concrete and hence reducing chloride corrosion and carbonation [3]. With regard to http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.04.199 0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: kabeer1210@gmail.com (K.I. Syed Ahmed Kabeer). Construction and Building Materials 147 (2017) 598–607 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Construction and Building Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat