Laboratory assessment on effects of blended cements on strength and durability of full-depth reclaimed pavement materials

In North America, chemical stabilizer that is commonly used in the full-depth reclamation process is General Use (GU) cement. Blended cements that contain substantial amount of supplementary cementitious materials, however, could be plausible alternatives that can help reduce the carbon footprint and improve certain properties, like shrinkage, of the stabilized materials. In this paper, the effects of blended cements, also known as Hydraulic Road Binder (HRB), on the strength and durability of full-depth reclaimed pavement materials were assessed based on laboratory investigations. The assessment was conducted using two types of reclaimed pavement materials and three types of blended cements. In addition, GU cement was used to produce control mixes. The strength of the stabilized materials was evaluated using unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test. The UCS test was performed on compacted specimens that had been prepared with different binder contents and moist cured for 7-days and 28-days. The durability assessment was carried out with freeze-thaw test. This test was done on compacted specimens that had been made with optimum binder contents. The results of UCS and freeze-thaw tests were analyzed with ANOVA, Fisher’s test and Dunnett’s test to identify the effects of the blended cements on the strength and durability of the full-depth reclaimed pavement materials. The analyses outputs indicated that blended cements can provide equivalent or even better strength and durability than GU cement if applied in full-depth reclamation process.