Utilization of spent foundry sand in controlled low-strength materials and concrete

With ever increasing quantities of industrial by-products and waste materials, solid waste management has become the principal environmental concerns in the world. Scarcity of land-filling space and due to its ever increasing cost, utilization/recycling of by-products/waste has become an attractive alternative to disposal. Several types of by-products and waste materials are generated. Each of these waste products has specific effects on the properties of cement-based materials (CLSM and Concrete). The utilization of such materials in concrete/CLSM not only makes it economical, but also do help in reducing disposal problems. Reuse of bulk wastes is considered the best environmental alternative for solving the problem of disposal. One of such industrial by-products is Spent Foundry Sand (SFS). Spent foundry sand is a by-product of ferrous and non-ferrous metal casting industries. Foundries successfully recycle and reuse the sand many times in a foundry. When the sand can no longer be reused in the foundry, it is removed from the foundry and is termed as spent foundry sand.Published literature has shown that SFS could be possibly used in manufacturing Controlled Low-Strength Materials (CLSM) and concrete. This paper presents an overview of some of the research published on the use of SFS in controlled low-strength materials and concrete. Effect of SFS on CLSM characteristics like plastic properties, compressive strength, permeability, and leachate analysis, and concrete properties such as compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, freezing–thawing resistance, and shrinkage are presented.