Synergistic Effects of Brick Waste and Fly Ash on Concrete Performance: An Experimental and Computational Study
This study investigates the performance of sustainable concrete using Over-Burnt Brick Waste (OBBW) as a partial replacement for natural Coarse Aggregates (CA), with Class C fly ash (F) as a supplementary cementitious material. Concrete mixtures were prepared with OBBW replacement levels ranging from 5% to 55% at a constant 10% F content. Mechanical properties were evaluated experimentally, and statistical analysis and machine learning models were used to assess the relationships among the mix design parameters. The experimental results indicate that OBBW replacement levels of up to 50% improved mechanical performance. Specifically, the optimized concrete mix achieved a Compressive Strength (CS) of 34.65 MPa, representing a 22.7% increase over the control mix (28.24 MPa). Furthermore, flexural strength increased by 4.7%, from 3.4 MPa to 3.56 MPa. The findings demonstrate that the use of OBBW and fly ash enables the production of high-performance, eco-friendly concrete.