Mechanical performance of steel and iron slag concretes: A brief review

Concrete has the lowest embodied energy among all the building materials and is the most extensively used material for meeting the high global demand for infrastructure. However, natural resource depletion is the prime concern associated with concrete as conventional ingredients in concrete are derived from natural resources. Various industrial wastes have been used as substitutes for conventional ingredients in concrete to minimize the environmental impacts associated with concrete. Steel slag (SS) and Iron slag (IS) is a waste product from the steel and iron industries that have been used to replace aggregates in concrete. This study reviews specifically the various mechanical properties of different types of concretes wherein SS and IS have been incorporated with varying contents. The investigation summarizes the related literature that is already scarce to date and indicates the feasibility, general trends, and rules for utilizing SS and IS in conventional and non-conventional concretes. It has been inferred from the literature that the use of SS and IS in concretes resulted in satisfactory performance in compressive strength(CS), split tensile strength(TS), and flexural strength(FS) and give optimum results for up to 30% replacement. The body of research also shows that SS and IS have a great deal of promise for usage as an alternative to aggregates in both structural and non-structural grade concretes, however, few of the investigations have also shown some unexpected findings.