High calcium fly ash geopolymer stabilized lateritic soil and granulated blast furnace slag blends as a pavement base material

Itthikorn Phummiphan; Suksun Horpibulsuk; Runglawan Rachan; Arul Arulrajah; Shui-Long Shen; Prinya Chindaprasirt

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.067

High calcium fly ash geopolymer stabilized lateritic soil and granulated blast furnace slag blends as a pavement base material

J Hazard Mater. 2018 Jan 5:341:257-267. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.067. Epub 2017 Jul 31.

Authors

Itthikorn Phummiphan¹, Suksun Horpibulsuk², Runglawan Rachan³, Arul Arulrajah⁴, Shui-Long Shen⁵, Prinya Chindaprasirt⁶

Affiliations

¹ Graduate Program in Construction and Infrastructure Management, Suranaree University of Technology, 111 University Avenue, Muang District, Nakhon Ratchasima 30000, Thailand.
² School of Civil Engineering, Center of Excellence in Innovation for Sustainable Infrastructure Development, Suranaree University of Technology, Thailand. Electronic address: suksun@g.sut.ac.th.
³ Department of Civil Engineering, Mahanakorn University of, Technology, Nong Chok District, Bangkok 10530, Thailand. Electronic address: runglawa@mut.ac.th.
⁴ Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Electronic address: aarulrajah@swin.edu.au.
⁵ Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, 800 Dong Chuan Road, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, China. Electronic address: slshen@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁶ Sustainable Infrastructure Research and Development Center, Department of Civil Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand. Electronic address: prinya@kku.ac.th.

PMID: 28797942
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.07.067

Abstract

Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GBFS) was used as a replacement material in marginal lateritic soil (LS) while class C Fly Ash (FA) was used as a precursor for the geopolymerization process to develop a low-carbon pavement base material at ambient temperature. Unconfined Compression Strength (UCS) tests were performed to investigate the strength development of geopolymer stabilized LS/GBFS blends. Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-ray Diffraction analysis were undertaken to examine the role of the various influencing factors on UCS development. The influencing factors studied included GBFS content, Na₂SiO₃:NaOH ratio (NS:NH) and curing time. The 7-day soaked UCS of FA geopolymer stabilized LS/GBFS blends at various NS:NH ratios tested was found to satisfy the specifications of the Thailand national road authorities. The GBFS replacement was found to be insignificant for the improvement of the UCS of FA geopolymer stabilized LS/GBFS blends at low NS:NH ratio of 50:50. Microstructural analysis indicated the coexistence of Calcium Silicate Hydrate (CSH) and Sodium Alumino Silicate Hydrate products in FA geopolymer stabilized LS/GBFS blends. This research enables GBFS, which is traditionally considered as a waste material, to be used as a replacement and partially reactive material in FA geopolymer pavement applications.

Keywords: Fly ash; Geopolymer; Granulated blast furnace slag; Lateritic soil; Pavement base.