Recently, the deficiency of natural sand is considered one of the most important thoughtful issues in the construction industry as it is one of the raw materials of concrete. The use of industrial waste by-products as an alternative material in concrete production is one solution to natural sand depletion. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the properties of the concrete containing Coal Bottom Ash (CBA) produced by coal-based power plants as sand replacement material. Initially, physical, chemical, microstructural properties like specific gravity, density, sieve analysis, X-ray fluorescence and scanning electron microscopic were investigated. Then, the optimum replacement of sand with CBA was determined based on the workability, compressive and splitting tensile test. The results displayed that the physical properties of CBA are similar to sand. Moreover, CBA was classified chemically as Class-F ash. It was found that the optimum replacement dosage of CBA with sand is 10% in which achieved the targeted/designed strength. In general, CBA has good potential to be utilized as a sand replacement material.

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Effects of different surface textures on the interface shear strength, interface slip, and failure modes of the concrete-to-concrete bond are examined through finite element numerical model and experimental methods in the presence of the horizontal load with ‘push-off’ technique under different normal stresses. Three different surface textures are considered; smooth, indented, and transversely roughened to finish the top surfaces of the concrete bases. In the three-dimensional modeling via the ABAQUS solver, the Cohesive Zone Model (CZM) is used to simulate the interface shear failure. It is observed that the interface shear strength increases with the applied normal stress. The transversely roughened surface achieves the highest interface shear strength compared with those finished with the indented and smooth approaches. The smooth and indented surfaces are controlled by the adhesive failure mode while the transversely roughened surface is dominated by the cohesive failure mode. Also, it is observed that the CZM approach can accurately model the interface shear failure with 3–29% differences between the modeled and the experimental test findings.