Relative temperature changes within concrete made with recycled glass aggregate

The focus of much of the published literature on the use of glass in concrete has been on its use as a cement replacement material. Recent studies have shown that recycled glass can be used as an aggregate without compromising concrete strength. However little research has been carried out on the thermal properties of such concretes.The temperature of recycled glass cullet after production using an implosion technique remained high for the next 24 h. Thus, an experimental investigation was undertaken in order to study whether concrete made with such material had significantly different thermal properties in comparison to concrete made with natural aggregates.The process of cement hydration resulted in much higher temperatures being produced in concrete made with glass cullet. Further testing revealed that exposure of concrete to both high (60 °C) and low (−20 °C) temperatures produced, greater temperature stability. These findings suggest that concrete made with recycled glass could have two important applications, namely, cold temperature concreting and in buildings to maintain greater temperature stability.