Evaluation of the Hydraulic, Physical, and Mechanical Properties of Pervious Concrete Using Iron Tailings as Coarse Aggregates

Aggregates are a significant component of pervious concrete. Pervious concrete using iron tailings as coarse aggregates was prepared to study the feasibility of this approach. A mix design procedure was also used to design pervious concrete based on different target porosities. The effective porosity, measured porosity, dry density, compressive strength, and permeability coefficient of pervious concrete were studied. The results show that the mix design procedure based on a target porosity is relatively reasonable for designing iron tailing-based pervious concrete. The 28 d compressive strength of the pervious concrete decreased from 42 to 11 MPa as the effective porosity increased from 5.2% to 27.2%. The effective porosity of the equilibrium point of the compressive strength and permeability coefficient of pervious concrete was approximately 16%, where the compressive strength was 21.5 MPa, and the water permeability was 3.2 mm/s. The permeability coefficient of pervious concrete can be predicted as an exponential function of the effective porosity, and the compressive strength of pervious concrete can be predicted as a logarithmic function of the effective porosity.