INVESTIGATION OF THE USE OF COAL REFUSE-FLY ASH COMPOSITIONS AS HIGHWAY BASE COURSE MATERIAL: STATE OF THE ART AND OPTIMUM USE AREA DETERMINATIONS

The need to recycle waste products is becoming more crucial as the cost of their disposal escalates and the availability of conventional materials becomes scarce. Two such by-products of the coal industry, coal mine refuse and fly ash, have shown promise as construction materials. This report outlines the Phase I findings from a study into the utilization of coal refuse-fly ash compositions as highway base course material. This portion of the investigation involved a comprehensive literature search into the engineering properties and field utilization of the two waste materials, including the assemblage of an annotated bibliography, and the identification of ten areas in which the use of such compositions would be optimal based on economic, environmental, and material availability considerations. The succeeding two phases of this study will involve the development of an optimum coal refuse-fly ash blend for each of the ten optimum use areas based on standard laboratory tests and the comparison of their performance to conventional materials utilizing the VESYS Predictive Design Procedure for flexible pavements.