Introduction The study relates to the experimental investigation to assess the suitability of non-standard sand for determining the compressive strength of cement. At present the compressive strength is obtained by using the standard sand conforming to I.S. 650-1991, available at Ennore, Chennai. The cost involved in the procurement of this sand is quite high. The necessity was felt to replace this by suitable substitute sand (non-standard sand) and results thus obtained made equivalent to that

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... with the standard sand. An attempt has been made to find a co-relation between the compressive strength of cement using standard sand and non-standard sands. The sands used were procured from three different sources namely, Badarpur sand and beds of rivers Yamuna and Ghaggar. The grading of non-standard sand was kept similar to that of standard sand conforming I.S. 650-1991 code. For determining the compressive strength of cement, mix proportions of cement, sand and water kept same for all sands, as per I.S. 8112-2013 for 43 grade cement respectively in conjunction with I.S. 4031 (part 6) 1988. The test results as obtained with non-standard sand were compared with that of standard sand. Suitable equivalent strength coefficients were obtained to convert the strength obtained with non-standard sand equivalent to the strength with standard sand. The variation in the strength coefficients for the strength at different age & with different sources may be due to the chemical composition of the sand which may be different from the Ennore sand. On the basis of investigation it was found out that Yamuna and Ghaggar sand yielded better compressive strength at the end of 28 days as compared to standard sand.