Hydraulic and mechanical response of base course aggregate with recycled glass particles

Abstract

The industry of glass recycling remains a challenge in the province of Quebec due to the lackof equipment required to produce new glass that meets the manufacturing quality. All kinds of glass can be recycled indefinitely because it can retain the similar properties of the reference glass used in the manufacture. Using recycled glass in fabricating new glass needs to separate glass by colors. In the province of Quebec, the collect of recyclable materials is done in a way that glass containers break during transportation and all recyclable materials such as carton, plastic, paper and glass are mixed together. Hence, mixed-colored glass that is unsuitable for producing new containers is utilized in other applications or sent to landfill. This thesis is devoted to using recycled glass (RG) as a replacement for aggregate in pavement structures, which can be a solution for the problems of glass recycling in Quebec. Reusing recycled material in the geotechnical engineering and roadwork has proved a great attraction. However, insufficient knowledge about mechanical characteristics of recycled glass as an aggregate and the shortage of information about the benefit of using it as the aggregate in unbound layers of pavement structures prevents its widespread use. This research program aims to study the advantages and disadvantages of using glass in base course materials from hydraulic and mechanical aspects. The program was divided into three parts. The first part was studying the physical and hydraulic properties of the separate sizes of RG and crushed limestone aggregate, as the reference material. In the second and third parts, the experimental tests were applied to trace the impact of utilizing RG blends with limestone as the unbound granular materials in the pavement structures. A wide range of geotechnical laboratory testing was analyzed to find conclusive evidence for the use of blends of this recycled material in road applications. The findings of this research show that RG blends can provide adequate drainage that is valuable to pavement performance during freeze-thaw cycles in cold region like province of Quebec. The properties of RG aggregate reveals that RG can be safely integrated in pavement base/subbase course regarding hydraulic aspects as well as mechanical aspects. However, it is recommended to limit RG ratio to 25% of fine fraction (0-5 mm) of base course aggregate to keep the least decrease of mechanical properties of blends.

Date	25 Oct 2018
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Michel Vaillancourt (Supervisor) & Alan Carter (Co-supervisor)