Comparison of fresh and hardened properties of concrete made with various artificial and natural sands

Concretes made with different fine aggregates (natural river sand, artificial crushed sand, artificial gravel sand and a hybrid sand (50% river sand and 50% gravel sand by mass)) were experimentally investigated. The concretes were found to have little differences in compressive strength and elastic modulus (less than 6.4%). Compared with the concrete made with natural river sand, the concretes made with artificial sands demonstrated higher flexural strengths (3.5–11.1%) and splitting strengths (4.4–12.8%) at 28 days, but lower workability (21.4–35.7%), water permeation resistance (34.3–53.7%) and abrasion resistance (2.9–20.6%). The compressive, flexural and splitting tensile strengths of the concretes increased with time under water curing. Under sulfate attack, the compressive strengths of the concretes were enhanced at 56 days but reduced at 90 days. In comparison with water curing, the reductions in compressive strength due to sulfate attack were 2.6–7.7% at 56 days and 11.8–24.4% at 90 days. Weibull distribution analysis was conducted to explore the sensitivity of concrete strength to the type of fine aggregate.