Advances in ground improvement using waste materials for transportation infrastructure

Abstract

Recycling waste materials for transport infrastructure such as coal wash (CW), steel furnace slag (SFS), fly ash (FA) and recycled tyre products is an efficient way of minimising the stockpiles of waste materials while offering significant economic and environmental benefits, as well as improving the stability and longevity of infrastructure foundations. This paper presents some of the most recent state-of-the-art studies undertaken at the University of Wollongong, Australia on the use of waste materials such as (a) CW-based granular mixtures (i.e. SFS + CW, CW + FA) for port reclamation and road base/subbase and (b) using recycled tyre products (i.e. rubber crumbs, tyre cell, under-sleeper pads and under-ballast mats) to increase track stability and reduce ballast degradation. Typical methods of applying these waste materials for different infrastructure conditions are described and the results of comprehensive laboratory and field tests are presented and discussed. Cite this articleIndraratna B, Qi Y, Tawk M et al. Advances in ground improvement using waste materials for transportation infrastructure.

Additional Criteria for Playground Impact Attenuating Sand

“…For each sand, four grading curves after 0, 500, 1000, and 1500 impacts are given. Grading curve shifting left after impact loading indicates particle degradation occurs during impact [41]. It is worth noting that Sand-06 (high sphericity and rounded) shows negligible degradation after 1500 impacts, Sand-10 and Sand-11 present significant degradation (>7) after 1500 impacts, others show relatively medium degradation (2.3 to 3.6).…”

Influence of Rubber Inclusion on the Dynamic Response of Rail Track

“…This indicates that the skeleton of the SEAL40 matrix is now controlled by the rubber particles which induce a rubberlike behaviour, i.e. a large elastic strain and high compressibility due to larger voids between particles (Indraratna et al 2020. The sum of elastic energy and dissipated energy gives the total amount of absorbed energy by the track substructure.…”

“…Various techniques have been proposed to mitigate these adverse effects such as improving track foundations by including resilient components and geosynthetics, and attenuating ground vibrations from the source or receiver (Fernandes et al 2008, Indraratna and Nimbalkar 2013, Tatsuoka et al 2014, Toward et al 2014, Fathali et al 2019. Of these techniques, researchers and practitioners are realising that the inclusion of rubber materials such as recycled tyre cells, under-ballast shock mats, under-sleeper pads, and granulated rubber added to the compacted capping layer or to the ballast later itself can be beneficial options; this is because their higher damping properties and greater energy absorbing capacity help the track system to dissipate the energy from the dynamic (moving) loading and thereby mitigate the damage to rail tracks (Indraratna et al 2020, Qi and.…”

Behavior of a Mixture of Coal Wash and Rubber Crumbs under Cyclic Loading

“…Nonetheless, in recent years, numerous studies have proposed CW as a potential construction fill and investigated its geotechnical properties (e.g. Heitor et al 2016;Indraratna 1994;Leventhal 1996;Leventhal and De Ambrosis 1985;Montgomery 1990;Okagbue and Ochulor 2007;Rujikiatkamjorn et al 2013;Chiaro et al 2015;Tasalloti et al 2015;Wang et al 2019;Indraratna et al 2020). More recently, Indraratna et al (2018) optimized a mixture of CW, RC and steel furnace slag (SFS) to minimize particle degradation and improve its energy absorption and damping properties and the dynamic properties of the mixture as appropriate for heavy haul tracks were also investigated by Qi et al (2018ab) and Qi and Indraratna (2020).…”