Rendering mortars with incorporation of very fine aggregates from construction and demolition waste

The intense rate of construction and demolition waste generation (CDW) over the years should boost recycling. The use of CDW as constituents of cementitious composites has been considered a feasible alternative to dumping. This paper presents a study of the behaviour of cementitious renderings incorporating very fine recycled aggregates from two types of CDW. Only particles of recycled aggregates below 0.149 mm were used as filler, hereinafter referred as recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and mixed recycled aggregate (MRA). The incorporation’ percentages used were 0%, 10%, 15% and 20% of natural aggregates’ volume. Several tests have been carried out, in order to evaluate the mortars in terms of mechanical strength, workability, water absorption, dimensional instability and water vapour permeability. The experimental programme consisted in three consecutive phases, in which the mortars that presented the best performances were selected for a deeper analysis of their features. The test results showed that modified mortars had a better behaviour in most of tests compared with the reference mortar (with no CDW). Mortars with incorporation of 20% of RCA and 15% of MRA presented the best performance.