Abstract:

Repeated loads in the road structure decrease the service life of the pavement and increase the maintenance costs with the increase in deformations such as rutting and superficial or deep crack formation. The use of steel slag, which is a by-product of iron-steel production, instead of natural aggregate, is becoming very common for both resource scarcity and waste disposal. Since the use of steel slag will be beneficial in terms of mechanical and environmental conditions due to its resistance to some seasonal changes and fatigue behavior, it is preferred to be used as a substitute for natural aggregates in layers such as foundation, sub-floor, cement coating, etc in the road superstructure design. In this way, both the use of natural resources will be reduced and the damage to nature will be minimized by the use of waste slag, which is constantly increasing. In this study, the effect of using steel slag on the foundation or sub-base layers was investigated by performing dynamic analyses with the finite element method. As a result of numerical analyzes carried out under repeated wheel loads of 400 kPa, the vertical deformation values obtained as a result of the use of steel slag material in the subbase layer were lower than the deformation values in the use of limestone-containing aggregate, which is another material in the literature. The findings show that the minimum deformation values in the first 50 loading steps occur in the CC and KC sections, respectively.

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