Analysis of Industrial By-Products and Wastes usage for Highway Construction Projects

Abstract

The necessity of achieving sustainable development is widely known, and it is being considered in almost all the required steps taken by the governments for the development of both developed and developing countries. Sustainable development helps achieving development of a nation, at the same time preserving the resources for future generation. Use of industrial by-products and wastes, which are normally disposed of in the vacant land, for replacing materials used for civil engineering purposes may help in achieving sustainable development by reducing carbon footprint emission. Due to larger consumption of materials for the construction of highways and roadways, use of industrial by-products and wastes as construction materials for highway and road may be a viable option for disposing, actually using, large quantities of them. In this perspective, industrial by-products and wastes such as waste foundry sand, fly ash and red mud can be used as highway construction materials. From the previous researches, it was found that soil-foundry sand mixtures amended with cement and lime can be used as highway subbase materials and they provide satisfactory results for unconfined compression tests and CBR tests.Even though these mixtures provide satisfactory mechanical properties, environmental suitability of materials has also to be investigated. This paper presents and discusses the environmental suitability of materials through the pH test and metal concentration test. The environmental suitability of the prepared mixtures was evaluated by analyzing the effluent collected during hydraulic conductivity tests. Laboratory leaching tests indicated that if these mixtures later come in contact with water that has been discharged directly to the environment (e.g., drainage through asphalt pavement), the quality of water will not be affected.