Environmental solution for waste PET bottles by using them in concrete

Poly Ethylene Terephthalate is a kind of polymer which is used in manufacturing polyester fibers, bottle resin and engineering polyester in most of the countries around the world. Vast usage of this polymer in food packing industries and long-term decomposition of this kind of waste in nature encouraged many researchers around the world to find new ways to recycle and reuse them. In this article, with a more comprehensive approach than previous studies, effects of 5, 10 and 15 percent of PET particle usage instead of sand were investigated. For this purpose, cubic and cylindrical samples with different water to cement ratios were made and the physical properties were obtained with the corresponding tests. Moreover, the samples which were cured in a standard condition were used for mechanical properties testing and the factors were extracted. Results show that fresh concrete with PET particles has less workability. Mechanical properties tests show that the elasticity modulus decreases for these concrete samples. The compressive and flexural strength increases at first but they decrease after a while. Ultrasonic wave tests show that concrete samples with PET particles have porous structure.