Ultra-High-Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete with UAE Red Dune Sand - Some Initial Results

Using local materials is important for reduction of cost and CO2 emission. Dune sand is prevalent in Middle East but has not been widely used in concrete products. In UAE, for construction purposes, quartz sand, which was not available locally, was imported from the neighbour and European countries at relatively high cost. In this paper, we present our early results of our trials using UAE local dune sand to replace quartz sand for UHPC reinforced fibre. Natural dune sand was used directly without any pre-treatment. The dune sand is charaterised as reddish round to subrounded fine sand with 99% particles passing sieve 0.5mm. The chemical analysis results show that the silica content of the dune sand is 67%. Our initial compressive and flexural test results have shown that dune sand is highly suitable for UHPC hence normal concrete. The compressive strength and flexural strength are sufficient, suitable more many applications, suggesting that it can replace quart sand in concrete.