Characterization of Blast Furnace Slag to be used as Road Base Material

Abstract

In congested areas around the world, traffic has significantly grown beyond expectation both in terms of volume and weight. Any hinder to the traffic causes severe delays resulting not only in economic loss but also in extra pollution of the environment. Therefore, maintenance works are desired to be reduced as much as possible. Application of self-cementing materials such as Blast Furnace Slag (BFS) for base courses is one of the methods to reduce the need for maintenance, since such base courses can provide a significant increase of the stiffness and the strength of the pavement structure. However, this type of stabilization appears to be associated with undesired deformations and distresses such as heaves formation and cracking that occurred, e.g. on the A32 motorway in the Netherlands. Different failure mechanisms have been hypothesized. This means, the use of BFS in a road (sub-)base layer requires a good knowledge of its characteristics. This paper presents data on the chemical and mineralogical characteristics of fresh and field aged BFS materials from a case study in the Netherlands. Furthermore a microstructural study was done on samples which have experienced freezing and thawing cycles.Structural EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience