Pulsed power application to production of recycled aggregate

New application using pulsed power discharge has been developed as the recycling method of the coarse aggregates from the waste concrete scraps. The optimal processing parameters on pulsed electric discharge underwater for the separation and recovery of high-quality recycled coarse aggregate from a concrete mass by pulsed power technique are investigated in terms of the capacitance of the pulse generator device, the discharge voltage, and the amount of energy discharged. In experiments, when the energy per pulse is set to 1.6 kJ and 160 pulses are applied to the concrete mass, recycled coarse aggregate is recovered that satisfies the oven-dry density and water absorption quality standards of recycled coarse aggregate for concrete class H while minimizing the applied energy. Furthermore, recovery of higher quality recycled coarse aggregate may be possible by appropriately changing the energy per pulsed discharge during the concrete decomposition process.