The Use of AL-Malih Valley Crushed Limestone as Coarse Aggregate in Concrete Production

Abstract

The southern part of Iraq suffers from shortages of suitable natural coarse aggregate for concrete production. Most of the available natural gravel are contaminated with coating sulphates. Therefore, coarse aggregates, for the time being are brought from middle & northern parts of Iraq, to be used in the southern areas. This research was carried out to study the suitability of crushed limestone from AL-Malih valley as coarse aggregate in concrete production.Geological investigation, evaluation of crushed rock aggregates properties, and evaluation of concrete properties produced by using crushed limestone as coarse aggregate, have been carried out in this research on limestone of AL-Malih valley area. The results showed that, it is possible to use this type of crushed rock aggregates in producing good quality concrete. Therefore, it is recommended to use the crushed limestone from the investigated area as coarse aggregate in producing concrete at the southern province of Iraq.