Work

Ionic soil stabilizers for mitigating drying shrinkage in solidified iron tailings: Enabling large-scale road base application

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: In the utilization of silty iron tailings as a pavement base material, it is crucial to access the drying shrinkage of the pavement base to mitigate the risk of reflective cracking in the surface course. This investigation aims to improve the crack resistance of the pavement base prepared with lime-fly ash stabilized iron tailings by adding an ionic soil stabilizer (ISS). Test results show that the incorporation of ISS effectively reduced the water evaporation of the stabilized iron tailing base material, leading to an increase in internal relative humidity. Besides, the ISS slightly elevated the total porosity of the stabilized iron tailings by hindering the pozzolanic reaction of fly ash, but can refine the microstructure given the increase of 5-10 nm pores and reduce the surface tension of pore solution. Therefore, the drying shrinkage of the lime-fly ash stabilized iron tailing base materials decreased significantly in the presence of ISS, given the refined pore structure, lower surface tension of pore solution, and greater internal relative humidity.

Source: Case Studies in Construction Materials

DOI: 10.1016/j.cscm.2025.e04832

Authors: Jian Jia, Meiling Xu, Jiang Zhu, Xiaolei Lu, Lina Zhang, Xin Cheng

Institution: University of Jinan

Language: English

Topic: Geotechnical and construction materials studies

Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,660