Light-weight aggregates for advanced civil engineering

Abstract

Currently, Indian Thermal Power Stations generate collectively around 80 million tonnes of coal ash annually, which is slated to touch a staggering level of 110 million tonnes by the turn of the century, in the process of threatening to sterilise huge tracts of scarce agri-land,besides the associated environmental degradation. To address this challenging situation, MOE&F, GOI, has issued Gazette Notification for mandatory utilisation of coal ash by Power Utilities over a specified time span, ensuring future bulk coal ash utilisation. It is a natural corollary, therefore, that concept of the use of fly-ash as construction material emerged as a major route for the recycling of fly-ash and, in the process, a thorough global technology search yielded Sintered Light Weight Aggregates which consist of as high as 99.3% fly-ash.