The Effect of Waste Clay Brick Content on Performance of Cement-Stabilized Recycled Concrete Aggregate in Pavement Base and Subbase Applications

Abstract

Waste clay brick (WCB) accounts for a dominant fraction of construction and demolition waste, and it is necessary to explore the sustainable measures of it as a construction material in civil engineering. This paper evaluated the effect of WCB content on the performance of cement-stabilized recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) in pavement base/subbase applications. Based on the microscopic tests and laboratory tests of the aggregate, the compaction test, unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test, indirect tensile strength (IDT) test, resilient modulus test, freeze and thaw cycling test, and drying shrinkage test were conducted with the different WCB content cement-stabilized RCA/WCB blends. A trial pavement section was paved based on the test results, and finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out to investigate the effect of cement-stabilized RCA/WCB blends on asphalt pavement. It is concluded that the potential utilization of pozzolanic properties of WCB plays an important role in pavement applications. The moderate content of WCB fine aggregate is beneficial for the UCS, IDT, resilient modulus, freeze and thaw cycling, and drying shrinkage of cement-stabilized RCA/WCB blends, while the content of WCB coarse aggregate influences the test results to a worse degree. Besides, the performances of the trial pavement section comply with the pavement design and specifications. Furthermore, the results of FEA indicate that the maximum vertical displacement and von Mises stress increase with the reduction of the resilient modulus. This paper gives systematic research on the effect of WCB content on cement-stabilized pavement base/subbase applications, and it may improve the potential application of cement-stabilized RCA/WCB blends in pavement base/subbase.