ABSTRACT
Infrastructures and tunnelling works should increase circular economy, maximizing waste reusing, in order to save quarrying, landfill dumping, transport and environmental impact. An integral reusing of tunneling waste can minimize the necessity of waste relocation. Hard rocks can be easily used as aggregate, instead, argillaceous waste commonly requires expensive relocation works. This research is pointed to demonstrate the possibility of producing refined materials from argillaceous tunneling waste for use in concrete, as aggregate, binders, supplementary cementitious materials and geopolymers, by applying a low energy treatment associated with chemical activation. The main advantage of the approach of this study is the potential to reuse larger quantities of clay materials with low treatment costs. It would be very useful also in case of Earth Pressure Balance TBM bored tunnel, where clay soil is often conditioned with surfactant and polymer agents to assure the stability of the excavation and to improve the TBM performance.
