Improvement of unbound granular pavement layers and subgrade with cement dust in Egypt

Abstract

The main goal of this study is to assess the technical viability of using cement dust as part of the fines percentage in the unbound granular base/subbase pavement layers’ and subgrade soil as a viable sustainable solution. This study investigates the effect of adding cement dust to five types of pavement road materials which are collected from different ongoing roadway construction projects (1) Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP), (2) crushed stone base aggregates, (3) blend of crushed stone base aggregates with RAP, (4) crushed stone subbase aggregates, and (5) sandy subgrade soil. The resilient modulus (Mr) is selected as the main characteristic for evaluating the investigated materials’ stiffness. The regression parameters (k1, k2, and k3) of the universal Mr prediction model are found by fitting the experimental results of Mr testing for two replicates per each material type. The results show that using 3–5% of cement dust improves the estimated Mr of the investigated base/subbase materials and subgrades at the anticipated field stresses by 8–21%., As a result the structural layer coefficients are enhanced by 11–17%. KENLAYER nonlinear damage analysis confirms that using 3–5% of cement dust improves the predicted rutting life by up to 12% and the fatigue life up to 27%. Based on a typical pavement structure, enhancing pavement base/subbase layers and subgrade soils with 3–5% of cement dust reduces asphalt layer thickness from 11.25 to 12.50% and increases base/subbase layer thickness from 8.75 to 12.50% to maintain the same predicted rutting and fatigue lives of the typical structure. This positively affects the total construction cost in addition to the ecological benefits.