Compressive and flexural properties of porous building materials created from contaminated waste glass

A new, energy efficient recycling technology is being developed that is compatible with post-consumer and post-industrial waste glass. This technology may be used to produce sustainable materials for the green building industry. During the process, materials are consolidated through cold isostatic pressing and then densified at temperatures up to 55% lower than the melting temperature. Densification through warm working was found to be compatible with common contaminants present in the glass waste stream and the process results in porous materials that possess up to 95% recycle content. Moreover, when compared to traditional manufacturing techniques, this process will reduce energy consumption by up to 70%. The objectives of this research were to characterize the physical and mechanical behavior of materials created through this process and compare these behaviors to established models for porous brittle materials. In addition, the sintering behavior of contaminated waste glass was characterized through fractography.;The results of this research show that high strength materials with predictable physical and mechanical behavior can be successfully formed at very low temperatures. Given the random nature of the pore structure, a probabilistic rather than deterministic approach was utilized in characterizing the mechanical behavior of the material. Analysis of the data yielded values for compressive strength varying between 6.8 and 150.8 MPa and values for transverse rupture strength varying between 2.8 and 29.9 MPa. In addition, the presence of contaminants did not impede sintering and materials with a wide range of porosity could be produced by using this process. Further, it was found that the resulting materials exhibited performance characteristics in excess of requirements for common masonry materials used in the construction industry.