Environmental Protection Through the Management of SBR and PET Waste in the Innovative Concrete Building Block APS

Abstract

The article presents the development of an innovative shape of the APS hollow block based on a cuboid, made of a designed recycled concrete mixture with additives of SBR rubber granules of various fractions and PET flakes obtained from recycling giving the possibility to managing this waste and contributing to environmental protection. The newly designed shape of the concrete wall block makes it possible to build foundation and retaining walls easily and quickly. At the same time, the designed curvilinear through-holes and two grooves enable the blocks to be joined horizontally with one another in a so-called ‘locking’ manner, ensuring horizontal stability and making it possible to meet the requirements for traditional openwork wall blocks. A series of laboratory tests is presented on the basis of designed concrete mixtures with different percentages of additives in the form of recycled waste: SBR rubber granules of different fractions and PET flakes, followed by the production of an openwork block APS from the selected recycled concrete mixture, which was compared with the reference block Alfa.