and aggregate are basic needs for any construction industry.

Sand is a prime
material used for preparation of mortar and concrete and which plays a major role
in mix design. Now a day’s erosion of rivers and considering environmental issues,
there is a scarcity of river sand. The non-availability or shortage of river sand
will affect the construction industry, hence there is a need to find the new
alternative material to replace the river sand, such that excess river erosion and
harm to environment is prevented. Many researchers are finding different materials
to replace sand and one of the major materials is quarry stone dust. Using
different proportion of these quarry dust along with sand the required concrete mix
can be obtained. This paper presents a review of the different alternatives to
natural sand in preparation of mortar and concrete. The paper emphasize on the
physical and mechanical properties and strength aspect on mortar and concrete.
Keywords- Sand, Quarry Stone Dust, Alternative Material, Physical Properties,
Mechanical Properties.
I. INTRODUCTION
Cement, sand and aggregate are essential needs for any construction industry. Sand
is a major material used for preparation of mortar and concrete and plays a most
important role in mix design. In general consumption of natural sand is high, due
to the large use of concrete and mortar. Hence the demand of natural sand is very
high in developing countries to satisfy the rapid infrastructure growth. The
developing country like India facing shortage of good quality natural sand and
particularly in India, natural sand deposits are being used up and causing serious
threat to environment as well as the society. Rapid extraction of sand from river
bed causing so many problems like losing water retaining soil strata, deepening of
the river beds and causing bank slides, loss of vegetation on the bank of rivers,
disturbs the aquatic life as well as disturbs agriculture due to lowering the water
table in the well etc are some of the examples. The heavy-exploitation of river
sand for construction purposes in Sri Lanka has led to various harmful problems
[1]. Options for various river sand alternatives, such as offshore sand, quarry
dust and filtered sand have also been made (W.P.S. Dias et al 2008)[2]. Physical as
well as chemical properties of fine aggregate affect the durability, workability
and also strength of concrete, so fine aggregate is a most important constituent of
concrete and cement mortar. Generally river sand or pit sand is used as fine
aggregate in mortar and concrete. Together fine and coarse aggregate make about 75-
80 % of total volume of concrete and hence it is very important to fine suitable
type and good quality aggregate nearby site (Hudson 1997). Recently natural sand is
becoming a very costly material because of its demand in the construction industry
due to this condition research began for cheap and easily available alternative
material to natural sand. Some alternatives materials have already been used as a
replacement of natural sand such as fly-ash, quarry dust or limestone and siliceous
stone powder, filtered sand, copper slag are used in concrete and mortar mixtures
as a partial or full replacement of natural sand (Chandana Sukesh et al 2013)[9].
Even though offshore sand is actually used in many countries such as the UK, Sri
Lanka, Continental Europe, India and Singapore, most of the records regarding use
of this alternative found mainly as a lesser extent of practice in the construction
field [3].
Due to shortage of river sand as well as its high the Madras High Court
restrictions on sand mining in rivers Cauvery and Tamirabharani. The facts like in
India is almost same in others countries also. So therefore the need to find an
alternative concrete and mortar aggregate material to river sand in construction
works has assumed greater importance now a days. Researcher and Engineers have come
out with their own ideas to decrease or fully replace the use of river sand and use
recent innovations such as M-Sand (manufactured sand), robot silica or sand, stone
crusher dust, filtered sand, treated and sieved silt removed from reservoirs as
well as
IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering (IOSR-JMCE)
e-ISSN: 2278-1684, p-ISSN: 2320-334X
PP 59-66
www.iosrjournals.org
International Conference on Advances in Engineering & Technology – 2014 (ICAET-
2014) 60 | Page
dams besides sand from other water bodies [4]. On the other hand, lack in required
quality is the major limitation in some of the above materials. Now a day’s
sustainable infrastructural growth requires the alternative material that should
satisfy technical requisites of fine aggregate as well as it should be available
locally with large amount. II. DIFFERENT ALTERNATIVES MATERIALS TO RIVER SAND The
world is resting over a landfill of waste hazardous materials which may substitutes
for natural sand. Irrespective of position, location, scale, type of any structure,
concrete is the base for the construction activity. In fact, concrete is the second
largest consumable material after water, with nearly three tonnes used annually for
each person on the earth. India consumes an estimated 450 million cubic meter of
concrete annually and which approximately comes to 1 tonne per Indian. We still
have a long way to go by global consumption levels but do we have enough sand to
make concrete and mortar? Value of construction industry grew at staggering rate of
15 % annually even in the economic slowdown and has contributed to 7-8 % of the
country’s GDP (at current prices) for the past eight years. Thus, it is becoming
increasingly discomforting for people like common people who talk about greening
the industry to have no practical answer to this very critical question. In fact we
have been sitting over a landfill of possible substitutes for sand. Industrial
waste and by-products from almost all industry, which have been raising hazardous
problems both for the environment, agricultural and human health can have major use
in construction activity which may be useful for not only from the economy point of
view but also to preserve the environment as well. Some of the researchers did the
work to find the alternatives for natural sand and they concluded about different
industrial