Abstract

There has been significant utilization of standard fly ashes, Class C and Class F fly ashes, in the cement industry and in soil stabilization applications. However, the majority of the fly ashes that do not satisfy the chemical standards [off-specification (off-spec) fly ashes] have been disposed in landfills because of their unfavorable chemical properties such as high carbon content or high SO3 content. In this study, a clay soil was stabilized with different proportions of the standard and off-spec fly ashes. A series of unconfined compression (UC) tests were conducted on the specimens that were prepared to observe the suitability of the off-spec fly ashes for soil stabilization. The test results indicated that the off-spec fly ashes showed superior performance compared with the standard fly ashes due to their high CaO contents regardless of their SiO2+Al2O3+Fe2O3 and SO3 contents. It was recommended that chemical- and performance-based standards should be used instead of only chemical-based standards to determine whether a selected fly ash is suitable for soil stabilization.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Aydin Gokce, from the Department of Civil Engineering at Gazi University, and Osman Yilmaz, a graduate student, for their help in performing the laboratory study.

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Go to Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 31Issue 2February 2019

History

Received: Jan 4, 2018
Accepted: Aug 8, 2018
Published online: Dec 4, 2018
Published in print: Feb 1, 2019
Discussion open until: May 4, 2019

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Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Gazi Univ., Ankara 06570, Turkey (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7630-7357. Email: [email protected]
Haluk Sinan Coban [email protected]
Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA 50011. Email: [email protected]
Bora Cetin, A.M.ASCE [email protected]
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA 50011. Email: [email protected]
Tuncer B. Edil, Dist.M.ASCE [email protected]
Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706. Email: [email protected]

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