Research rticle Feasibility Assessment of Incorporating Copper Slag as a Sand Substitute to Attain Sustainable Production Perspective in Concrete Akshaykumar M. Bhoi , 1 Yogesh D. Patil, 2 Hemant S. Patil, 2 and Madhav P. Kadam 1 1 Civil Engineering Department, NDMVPS’s KBT College of Engineering, Nashik, Maharashtra 422013, India 2 pplied Mechanics Department, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, Gujarat 395007, India Correspondence should be addressed to Akshaykumar M. Bhoi; akshaybhoi@gmail.com Received 28 May 2017; Revised 12 November 2017; Accepted 4 December 2017; Published 11 February 2018 Academic Editor: Jose M. Monzo Copyright © 2018 Akshaykumar M. Bhoi et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Motivated by the sustainable production perspective, a laboratory testing program is exercised to ascertain the feasibility of utilizing copper slag in place of the natural ﬁne aggregate in concrete. Totally, ﬁfteen concrete mixtures were prepared to incorporate copper slag in place of the ﬁne aggregate in concrete. e attributes of concrete specimens made with varying proportions of copper slag were compared (ranging from 0% to 100% substitution) at a w/c ratio of 0.44, and the optimum percentage of copper slag was decided. e w/c ratio in the mix containing optimum copper slag percentage was then varied (from 0.42 to 0.36) to examine the inﬂuence of the change in the quantity of available water on the strength attributes of concrete. Concrete specimens were assessed for workability, density, compressive strength, ﬂexural strength, and split tensile strength. SEM images and X-ray diﬀractograms of concrete specimens were also studied. e results obtained indicated a signiﬁcant increase in workability and a small rise in the bulk density of concrete. e study concludes that substituting 60% sand with copper slag results in better compressive strength compared to control concrete and can be improved further by reducing the w/c ratio in the mix. 1. Introduction e remarkable versatility, the ease of construction, and certain durability properties of concrete have made it an essential constituent of construction for decades. e primary chal- lenge before today’s construction industry is to meet the demand of eﬃcient and economically viable construction material posed by the huge infrastructural need. e natural ingredients, ﬁne aggregate, and coarse aggregate constitute more than 70% volume of concrete. e availability of these natural resources is decreasing at a very high pace. In fact, due to the severe problem with natural sand, the construction industry is faced with a pressing need to consider available options to lessen the reliance on natural ﬁne aggregate. On the other front, due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, waste generation has increased tremendously. Traditionally, industries manage their wastes by dumping them into the environment, most of the time without any prior treatment. Discharging the industrial waste materials into the envi- ronment which have signiﬁcant potential to cause environ- mental hazards can also become a serious threat to human health. Researchers have conducted many investigations to ﬁnd practical and environment-friendly ways of disposing oﬀ industrial waste in recent years. Disposal of this enormous volume of industrial waste in concrete appears to be the call of the hour. Sustainable development means wisely using existing resources so that the future demands can be satisﬁed with ease. Utilization of the industrial waste in concrete can not only provide a cheap and abundant source of the ﬁne aggregate in the concrete but also reduce the environmental pollution resulting in the improved sustainability credentials of the concrete. How- ever, this is possible only if the substitute raw material either improves or at least maintains the attributes of the concrete. Researchers in the past have successfully produced concrete utilizing industrial waste materials as a substitute Hindawi Advances in Materials Science and Engineering Volume 2018, Article ID 6502890, 11 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6502890