A new technology of transforming recycled glass waste to construction components

Millions of tonnes of glass wastes are produced worldwide, but only marginal is fed back into recycling with majority ending at stockpiles. Though glass wastes are used in the construction industry since decades, there still exists need to recycle this valuable waste product which otherwise could result environmental concerns from excessive stockpiles. This study investigates for a new technology that utilizes recovered glass wastes to manufacture building components using access covers as example, thus introducing a new market for glass wastes. The new technology is based on fine recycled glass in encapsulation of polymeric thermosetting materials from cross linking reaction of resins. First, a series of laboratory tests (i.e. compressive, flexure and impact resistance tests) were performed on composite samples prepared under different glass-composite formulations, glass particle sizes and curing periods to investigate the behaviour of novel glass recycled composite material. Results of sample tests were analysed to identify an optimised mix design for recycled glass composite material. Having identified the optimum dosages, studies were then extended to identify lab manufacturing process for access cover prototype. A special clamping method was adopted to manufacture the access cover using stagewise manufacturing process under optimum formulations. Performance tests conducted following AS3996 revealed that the lab-based access cover can support an external load of up to 4 tonnes which can be further enhanced using geometric optimization. This study provides detailed description of translating glass wastes to manufacture sustainable building components using a unique glass recycling technology which has potential to utilize in broader civil engineering applications.