Evaluation of foamed sulfur asphalt stabilized soils for road applications

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Highlights

  • Design of marl, sabkha and sand foamed sulfur asphalt (FSA) mixes.

  • Evaluate soils-FSA mixes.

  • Compare with the conventional foamed asphalt (FA) soils mixes.

  • FSA mixes displayed a significant improvement in ITS, stability and shear strength.

  • FSA can be used successfully to construct road bases from marginal soils.

Abstract

This paper summarizes the research carried out to evaluate and compare the performance of marginal soils, namely marl, sabkha and dune sand treated with foamed sulfur asphalt (FSA) with the mixes of the same soils treated with conventional foamed asphalt (FA) for the construction of road bases. FSA and FA mixes were designed for the three soils utilizing low percentage of Portland cement (2%) and were optimized to meet dry and wet indirect tensile strength (ITS) requirements. Designed mixes were evaluated for Marshall stability, static triaxial (shear strength) and dynamic resilient modulus at 22 °C.

Results indicate that properly designed FSA mixes displayed a significant improvement in ITS (17% for marl and 9.4% for sand soils), Marshall stability (14% for marl and sand soils) and shear strength (135%, 76% and 250% for marl, sabkha and sand soils, respectively) as compared with those of conventional FA mixes. Resilient modulus testing indicated that FSA has marginally reduced the resilient modulus of soils compared with FA. Foamed sulfur asphalt technology can be used successfully to construct road bases from available marginal soils.

Section snippets

Background

Many parts of the world, where desert and semi-desert environment prevails, lack the good quality road construction materials. One of the typical examples of such environment is the Arabian Gulf and coastal areas of the Red sea. Due to the rapid growing population and expansion of industrial facilities, huge industrial cities and associated network of roads and airports have been being constructed. The scarcity of good quality soils has led to the increased construction cost of road projects

Experimental work

Marginal soils cover most areas of the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. In order to investigate the possible treatment of these marginal soils, required quantities of dune sand, marl and sabkha soils were collected, subjected to basic characterization and then stored for the use in the experiments. The basic engineering properties of the soils were assessed by conducting preliminary characterization tests including mineralogical analysis, specific gravity, plasticity tests and grain size

Mineralogical analyses of soils

X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was used to perform the mineralogical composition of the marl, sabkha, and sand soils used in this study. XRD analyses for these soils are shown in Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Fig. 5.

Fig. 3 shows the X-ray diffractogram for marl and the peaks reveal the presence of about 60% dolomite [CaMg(CO3)2], 30% quartz (SiO2) and 6% calcite (CaCO3) in addition to traces of other minerals. The relatively high percentage of calcite and quartz is responsible for the non-plastic and

Statistical analysis

The power of the statistical analysis improves when more replicate samples are used. Thus, for each binder type, three specimens, at least, were tested at each percentage of binder content and the results were used in the statistical analysis to determine the effect of binder content and binder type on the various properties such as, stability, ITS and resilient modulus. Analysis of variance ANOVA, using two-factor factorial analysis, was used to study the effect of additive type (FSA and FA)

Conclusions

The target of this study was to evaluate marl, sabkha and dune sand soils stabilized with foamed sulfur asphalt and compare their behavior to that of conventional foamed asphalt mixes. Based on the test results of this study, the following conclusions are drawn:

  • 1.

    Foamed sulfur asphalt (FSA) mixes were found to have higher stability than conventional foamed asphalt (FA) mixes and satisfied the requirement recommended by Asphalt Institute.

  • 2.

    FSA showed a significant effect on the ITS for marl and sand

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) for the execution of this research.

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