The Variability and Evaluation Method of Recycled Concrete Aggregate Properties

Abstract

With the same sources and regeneration techniques, given RA’s properties may display large variations. The same single property index of different sets maybe has a large difference of the whole property. How shall we accurately evaluate the whole property of RA? 8 groups of RAs from pavement and building were used to research the method of evaluating the holistic characteristics of RA. After testing and investigating, the parameters of aggregates were analyzed. The data of physical and mechanical properties show a distinct dispersion and instability; thus, it has been difficult to express the whole characteristics in any single property parameter. The Euclidean distance can express the similarity of samples. The closer the distance, the more similar the property. The standard variance of the whole property Euclidean distances for two types of RA is <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>S</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>k</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">7.34</mml:mn><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">1</mml:mn></mml:math> and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2"><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>S</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>k</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">2.20</mml:mn><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">8</mml:mn></mml:math>, respectively, which shows that the property of building RA has great fluctuation, while pavement RA is more stable. There are certain correlations among the apparent density, water absorption, and crushed value of RAs, and the Mahalanobis distance method can directly evaluate the whole property by using its parameters: mean, variance, and covariance, and it can provide a grade evaluation model for RAs.