The increasing global demand for manganese ore and environmental impacts associated with the disposal of ore waste have motivated studies about the reuse of materials from tailings dams. In this context, the main objective of this work was to study the reuse of manganese waste as materials for civil construction. For this purpose a characterization of the Mn tailings was made from a physical, chemical, mineralogical, environmental and reactivity point of view. From these analyzes, feasible applications for the tailings were investigated. The first one was to study its reutilization as a filler in Portland cement. For this, reference mortars and mortars with 6, 8 and 10% substitutions were made to the cement. The mortars were tested for compressive strength and total water absorption and voids index at 28 days. The tests showed that the mortars with substitution contents obtained positive results when compared to the reference mortars. Inducing the resistance gain mainly for the percentages of 6 and 8%, as well as for the results of total absorption and voids index. A second investigation was carried out to study the reuse of Mn tailings as a fine aggregate in the manufacture of concrete. For this purpose, reference concrete and concretes were made with 15, 20, 25 and 30% substitutions to the natural fine aggregate. Through the analysis of resistance to axial compression a positive result was observed for both samples, especially for concretes with 15 and 20% substitution. The tests of tensile strength and modulus of elasticity achieved satisfactory results for both samples, especially for concretes with 20, 25 and 30% of substitution. In the capillary absorption analysis, the concretes with substitutions presented significant variations when compared to the reference concretes. The samples of 15% and 30% were the ones that less absorbed water, and the results of the 20 and 25% samples were still below the absorption values of the reference concrete. In this way, the reuse of this waste as materials for civil construction becomes feasible from a technical and environmental point of view.
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