Dredged Marine Sediments Geotechnical Characterisation for Their Reuse in Road Construction

A large Research European Interreg IVA Program called "Sustainable Environmental Treatment and Reuse of Marine Sediment" is running in order to better understand the Channel sediment characteristics and to develop and promote sustainable management practices for marine sediments. A total of 13 sediments localized along the Manche channel were sampled and analyzed for SETARMS European project. A comprehensive series of laboratory tests were performed in order to characterize different sediments. This is a primordial step to class sampled sediments from a geotechnical point of view according to the French technical guide (GTR). This will be necessary to evaluate the potential use of treated sediments. Then to determine, with the French treatment guide GTS (soils treatment with lime and/or hydraulic binders) the appropriate formulation using hydraulic binders in order to improve sediments mechanical properties and allowing them to be reused in geotechnical applications, especially as a road material. This paper presents and discusses results of physical and geotechnical characterization of different sediments sampled from different French ports. Geotechnical characterization results show that sediments have a great initial water content and are classified as fine and plastic materials with low to high organic matter content. Knowing that the variability of sediments characteristics is one of the limits to their reuse in geotechnical applications, the results will be presented and put in prospect towards this variability and the reuse of sediment as a subgrade layer.