Professional Documents
Culture Documents
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Received 2013-12-21, revised 2014-05-31, accepted 2014-10-08
Abstract 1 Introduction
This paper provides experimental insights on the modification It is becoming more attractive to reuse and recycle industrial
of a soil using electric arc furnace (EAF) steel slag, which is lim- wastes rather than disposing them off. Steel slag, a by-product
itedly used as a construction material because of its volumetric of the conversion of iron to steel, is one of the industrial wastes
instability. Various percentages of pulverized steel slag were ap- having a large percentage still being disposed off in landfills and
plied to a soil, having poor engineering properties, with the aim on dumpsites. Past years, steel slag was not attractive because
of improving the engineering properties of the soil. Sieve anal- of the availability of large amount of blast furnace slag, which is
ysis, consistency limits, specific gravity, compaction, California considered more stable for direct use as a construction material
bearing ratio (CBR), unconfined compression and permeability than steel slag.
tests were performed on the soil and each of the soil-slag mix- In 2002, 50 million metric tons of steel slag was estimated to
tures. The plasticity and the uncured strength of the soil were re- be produced worldwide [4] and 12 million tons was estimated to
duced and increased, respectively, by the addition of an optimal be produced in Europe [14]. Currently, the world annual produc-
steel slag content of 8%. Pulverized steel slag is therefore rec- tion of steel slag is estimated to range between 90 - 135 million
ommended as a low-cost modifier or stabilizer of lateritic soils metric tons.
with poor engineering properties, because it made the soil sam- Approximately 15 to 40% of the 10 - 15 million metric tons of
ple in this study better suited for use as a road pavement layer steel slag generated in the United States in 2006 was not utilized
material. [24] and a larger percentage of the 0.35 - 0.45 million metric tons
of steel slag estimated by Akinwumi et al. [2] to be generated
Keywords annually in Nigeria is disposed-off in an environment-unfriendly
steel slag · lateritic soil · soil modification · geotechnical prop- manner.
erties Steel slag is generally categorized based on its raw materials
and production process into basic oxygen furnace (BOF) slag
and electric arc furnace (EAF) slag. Unlike blast furnace slag,
BOF and EAF slags contain high unhydrated lime (CaO) that
causes it to volumetrically expand [19, 23] and this limits its use
as a construction material.
Researchers found out that steel slag can be used for man-
ufacturing blended cement [4, 13, 18, 22]; used as aggregate
in Portland cement concrete and asphalt concrete [1, 12, 14];
and as unbound granular materials for road bases and sub-bases
[14]. However there is no work on mixing EAF slag with soils
(and especially lateritic soil) for improvement of its geotechni-
cal properties in order to use the blend or mixture as a pavement
layer material.
This research effort focuses on investigating how pulverized
EAF slag modifies the plasticity, strength and permeability of a
Isaac Akinwumi
lateritic soil, and identifies the extent of the correlation between
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, Covenant University,
each of these engineering properties and the addition of steel
Ota, P.M.B. 1023, Nigeria
e-mail: isaac.akinwumi@covenantuniversity.edu.ng
slag.
C o n c e n tr a tio n ( % )
effective while also minimizing its eventual disposal.
3 0
P e r c e n t F in e r ( % )
F e 2
4 0 6 0
6 0
)
O 3
w e a k la te r iz a tio n
2 (%
5 0
(%
S iO
)
6 0 4 0
4 0
m o d e r a te la te r iz a tio n 3 0
8 0 2 0
2 0
s tr o n g la te r iz a tio n 1 0
1 0 0 0
0
1 0 0 8 0 6 0 4 0 2 0 0 1 E -3 0 .0 1 0 .1 1 1 0
A l2 O 3 ( % ) P a r tic le s iz e ( m m )
Fig. 2. Tri-plot of some oxides of the soil Fig. 4. Particle size distribution of natural soil and with 10% steel slag con-
tent
6 0
After a series of specific gravity tests, the average specific
M in im u m c o n c e n tr a tio n
M a x im u m c o n c e n tr a tio n gravities of the soil and steel slag samples were determined to
5 0
S a m p le c o n c e n tr a tio n
be 2.65 and 3.58, respectively. Variation of specific gravity of
4 0 the soil with changes in steel slag content is presented in Fig. 5.
C o n c e n tr a tio n ( % )
0
P 2O 5
M g O A l2 O 3
M n O S iO 2
C a O F e O
2 .8 8
O x id e s
2 .8 4
Fig. 3. Oxide composition of the steel slag
2 .8 0
S p e c ific g r a v ity
3 0
The increase in maximum dry unit weight with increasing
steel slag content was expected considering the higher specific
2 0
gravity of the steel slag compared with that of the soil.
The optimum moisture content of the soil decreased as the
1 0 amount of steel slag in the mixture increased from 0 to 8% be-
fore a slight increase for the 10% slag content. The decrease in
0 2 4 6 8 1 0
optimum moisture content of the soil-slag mixtures as the steel
S te e l s la g c o n te n t ( % )
slag content increased was strongly correlated, r = -0.965.
Fig. 6. Variation of Atterberg limits with slag content
7 0
shown in Fig. 4 are most likely responsible for the decrease in 0 % S te e l s la g c o n te n t
6 0 5 % S te e l s la g c o n te n t
liquid and plastic limits, and plasticity index with progressive in- 8 % S te e l s la g c o n te n t
1 0 % S te e l s la g c o n te n t
crease in slag content. This reduction in clay-size particles may 5 0
A -7 -6
be due to the replacement of lower valence cations present in the
P la s tic ity In d e x ( % )
4 0
soil by Ca2+ and Mg2+ present in the steel slag, reducing the size
of the diffused water layer, thereby allowing the clay-sized parti- 3 0
A -6 a n d A -2 -6 A -7 -5 a n d A -2 -7
cles in the soil and slag to approach each other more closely and
2 0
get clumped-together to form silt-size particles. This behavior is
similar to that of lime modification of soils that leads to greater 1 0
A -4 a n d A -2 -4 A -5 a n d A -2 -5
workability of the soil except that for lime-treated soils, their 0
plastic limits were found to be higher than those of the natural 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 0 1 0 0
L iq u id lim it ( % )
soils. Fig. 7 shows that the natural soil, which was classified as
A-7-6 on the plasticity chart, was improved to an A-6 soil by the
Fig. 7. AASHTO plasticity chart showing the plots of the mean values of
addition of steel slag. the natural and modified soil samples
M a x im u m
1 8 .4
m o is tu r e c o n te n t ( % )
1 6 .8
0 .2 2
1 8 .3
d r y u n it w e ig h t ( k N /m
1 6 .0
0 .2 0
1 8 .2
S w e ll p o te n tia l ( % )
1 5 .2
O p tim u m
0 .1 8
1 8 .1
3
1 4 .4
)
0 .1 6
1 8 .0
0 2 4 6 8 1 0
S te e l s la g c o n te n t ( % )
0 .1 4
4 5
)
2
U n s o a k e d C B R (% )
8 0
U n c o n fin e d c o m p r e s s iv e s tr e n g th ( k N /m
S o a k e d C B R (% )
1 6 0
4 0
7 0
3 5
1 4 0
6 0
3 0
1 2 0
5 0 2 5
0 2 4 6 8 1 0
S te e l s la g c o n te n t ( % ) 1 0 0
0 2 4 6 8 1 0
The swell potential of the soil progressively reduced with Fig. 11. Variation of UCS with slag content