Performance evaluation of cellular lightweight concrete using palm oil industrial waste as cement and fine aggregate replacement materials

Cellular lightweight concrete (CLC) or sometimes referred to as foamed concrete is widely used in construction for many decades. The foamed concrete properties include low density, as well as good thermal conductivity, high workability and self-compaction and these characteristics enable foamed concrete in many applications. This research deals with the properties of cellular lightweight concrete (foamed concrete) using wastes of palm oil industries namely, palm oil fuel ash (POFA) of 10% as cement replacement and palm oil clinker (POC) at 50% and 100% as sand replacement to develop 1200 kg/m3 foamed concrete. Six different mixes of foam concrete were prepared and various tests on fresh density, flow table, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), compressive strength, and splitting tensile conducted. The results show that the use of 10% of POFA as cement replacement and 50% of POC sand produced requisite strength for structural grade. For the mix with POC100POFA10, under air curing method, 10.3 MPa was the highest compressive strength was achieved; while, for the mix, POC50 under water curing method, the highest strength of 9 MPa obtained. In a nutshell, the byproduct palm oil industrial waste has a good contributing to the sustainable development of the construction industry as well as the agricultural sector in Malaysia and other oil palm growing countries of the world.