DEVELOPMENT OF PRECAST CONCRETE PANEL CONTAINING WATER HYACINTH

Abstract

The objective of this research is to use water hyacinth, a current environmental problem, which has outstanding properties in terms of chemical composition and has a lot of cellulose fibers to develop further to increase efficiency in reducing heat of building envelopes in the construction industry that will help reduce the amount of concrete and other synthetic materials used and instead of using heat-insulating materials that are not environmentally friendly, such as polyurethane foam, polystyrene, fiberglass insulation, gypsum board and Heat-reflecting coatings, etc. The step of studying the potential of developing non-load-bearing prefabricated concrete slabs consists of producing sample sheets with dimensions of 3 sizes : width 20 x length 20 x thickness 7.5 centimeters, 5 cubic centimeter and 15 cubic centimeter and a mixture ratio by weight of cement : sand : water equals to 1 : 1.5 : 0.5 and water hyacinth was added in different ratios, a total of 5 formulas (A1 - A5), namely 0.08, 0.1, 0.125, 0.15 and 0.175, respectively, to test the formability of the sample sheets. Then the sample sheets were tested in the laboratory to find the values of density, water absorption, thermal conductivity (k), compression resistance, and bending strength. Test results found that all of the sample have the thermal conductivity values in the range of the standard criteria announced by the Ministry of Energy, Which is 0.3 - 0.47 W/m.K and have the average compression resistance values of the test samples at 28 days of age, slightly lower than the Thai Industrial Standard 58-2533 (≥2.5 megapascal). The formula A1 has an average compression resistance value (1.89 megapascal) closest to the TIS58-2533 and has a water absorption value of 15.86 percent, which is close to the TIS 2226-2005 (≤14 percent) Overall test results confirm that water hyacinth fibers have the potential to be further developed as prefabricated concrete wall panels for future use.