Slag-based binders in road stabilization: Fid-Bau Portal

Slag-based binders in road stabilization

Mäkikyrö, M.

Research into alternative binding agents and stabilization techniques increased markedly in the 1990s, when particular attention was devoted to the use of industrial by-products for this purpose and to the development of in situ mixing techniques in an attempt to achieve the same quality as with cement station mixing. This paper introduces results from the research, the aim of which was to develope slag-based binders for road stabilization. The research proceeded in stages, of which the first was a reconsideration of the results presented in the author's licentiate thesis concerning factors affecting the stabilization of road construction aggregates with blast-furnace slag-based binding agents and their significance. This was followed by a series of experiments designed to test the validity of these results. At the third stage the selection of slag-based binding agents was extended to include LD steel slag products, while the final stage consisted of the implementation of a set of test structures and associated preliminary experiments and monitoring measurements. The binding properties of three blast-furnace slag products and three LD steel slag products, used separately or in various combinations, were examined in the course of this work, taking cement as a reference material. Materials were then eliminated as the research proceeded, either on account of their poor binding properties or on economic grounds, until the final construction experiments were performed with three combinations: cement-activated granulated blast-furnace slag, LD steel slag-activated granulated blast-furnace slag and a mixture of ground granulated blast-furnace slag and cement. (VDEh)