ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Development of freight transportation infrastructure, whether it is highway or rail, will need to address several issues to be sustainable and economic. The new infrastructure should sustain higher loads but also last longer, be economic to build, and minimize energy consumption and generation of green house gases for materials production and construction. Upgrading the existing infrastructure to meet the increased load requirements and satisfy these requirements of sustainability is a challenging prospect. To investigate the feasibility of this approach, a field experiment is undertaken at MnROAD facility. Three identical highway sections were constructed except each had a different base course: conventional crushed aggregate, recycled pavement material (RPM), and RPM stabilized with high-carbon fly ash (typically not suitable for concrete production but self-cementitious). A variety of field tests during construction (soil stiffness gauge, dynamic cone penetrometer, nuclear density, light weight deflectometer) and post-construction (falling weight deflectometer) were performed on the instrumented road segments (temperature, moisture content, pavement strain, and stress). Additionally, laboratory material characterization tests (aggregate tests, compaction, permeability, CBR, and resilient modulus) were performed on all three base materials. Comparative behavior and benefits of using recycled materials are investigated.
