Performance of self-compacting concretes with wastes from heavy ceramic industry against corrosion by chlorides Valdith Lopes Jerônimo a , Gibson Rocha Meira a,b,⇑ , Luiz Carlos Pinto da Silva Filho c a Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Paraíba, Av. 1° de Maio, 720, 58015-430 João Pessoa, Brazil b Civil and Environmental Engineering Post-graduate Programme of UFPB, João Pessoa, Brazil c Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Civil Engineering Department, Av. Osvaldo Aranha, 99, 7° Floor, 90035-190 Porto Alegre, Brazil highlights  TGA/DTG of pastes show the pozzolan action of ground clay bricks waste (GCBW).  XRD tests show more Friedel’s salt formation in GCBW paste.  GCBW concretes present lower chloride thresholds due to their alkalinity decay.  GCBW concretes present lower porosity, what impacts on compressive strength growth.  GCBW use enlarges the initiation period of corrosion in environments with chlorides. article info Article history: Received 13 September 2017 Received in revised form 19 February 2018 Accepted 2 March 2018 Keywords: Chlorides Corrosion Ceramic wastes Durability Self-compacting concrete abstract This work analyses the influence of cement replacement by ground clay bricks waste (GCBW) on paste and concrete properties and on reinforcement corrosion triggered by chlorides. TGA/DTG of pastes show the GCBW pozzolanic effect. Porosity decrease in GCBW concretes contributes to their compressive strength increase. XRD tests show more Friedel’s salt formation in GCBW paste. GCBW concretes revealed a decrease in chloride threshold due to their alkalinity decay and in chloride transport rate, what is explained by porosity reduction caused by pozzolanic and filler effects and binding ability improvement. Broadly, concretes with 20–30% of cement replacement presented the best performances. Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The production of cementitious materials involves a significant environmental impact due to the CO 2 emission as well as the extraction of raw materials [1]. The reduction of the clinker con- sumption has been a way adopted for mitigating the environmen- tal impact of cementitious materials in a significant extent. Thus, works that aim to study the viability of the cement replacement by industrial wastes play an important role in this scenario. The waste from the heavy ceramic industry, especially from bricks and tiles, is subjected, during the manufacturing process, to a burning procedure that can provide pozzolanic characteristics to this waste [2] in a similar way as calcined clay produced for being used in cement plants. When this kind of waste is milled, the filler effect added to a possible pozzolanic action makes its use viable as a partial replacement of cement, especially when the aim is to produce self-compacting concretes. This kind of use represents a suitable environmental destination for heavy ceramic industry waste, what prevents it from being dump at places that can cause damage to the environment and also reduces the clinker content in cementitious materials, mitigating the environmental impact related to clinker production too. Regarding the ground clay bricks waste (GCBW), previous stud- ies show that the use of GCBW in cementitious matrices can con- tribute to increase the compressive strength, as a consequence of the paste densification, as well as to reduce the chloride transport ability of the matrix [2,3]. This behaviour is similar to that observed in calcined clay studies [4,5]. Although some previous works noticed a loss of mechanical performance, when replacing cement by GCBW, in general, it hap- pened under higher ranges of replacements [6,7]. Under this condi- tion, the impact of the reduction of cement consumption on https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.03.034 0950-0618/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author at: Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technol- ogy of Paraíba, Av. 1° de Maio, 720, 58015-430 João Pessoa, Brazil. E-mail address: gibson.meira@ifpb.edu.br (G.R. Meira). Construction and Building Materials 169 (2018) 900–910 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Construction and Building Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat