Feasibility Study of the Potential Use of Drill Cuttings in Concrete

Abstract Increasing the need of energy and its high price tempts companies to drill more oil wells every day and create more drilling waste. Most of these drilling wastes are managed to be disposed but they will always have many environmental impacts. Therefore, this study investigates the potential of using drill cuttings in concrete as a partial replacement of cement. The innovation of this study is not only to produce a new and cost-effective material from drill cuttings, but also to mitigate its negative environmental impacts. To achieve this objective, laboratory studies carried out to quantify the compressive strength of concrete samples and to determine the chemical composition of drill cuttings. Results showed that replacing 5% of cement with dried drill cuttings reduces the compressive strength of concrete by 10%. However, comprehensive strength of concrete samples decreases by 20% when replacing 10, 15, and 20% of cement with drill cuttings. Furthermore, the effect of some additives such as fly ash and silica fume on the compressive strength of the concrete samples containing drill cuttings was studied. It was concluded that adding these additives have a significant influence on the compressive strength of concrete samples containing 20% drill cuttings.

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