Suitability of garnet to grading and fineness modulus as bedding sand layer in concrete block pavement

Abstract

Currently, highway and road construction use river sand as part of pavement construction. Due to rapid development, the demand for common sand increased and was heavily used in construction. Building constructions also require sand as the material to produce concrete. This is the major factor in increasing the demand for river sand and can increase the price of river sand. There are alternative suggestions by many researchers that use waste materials to replace ordinary sand completely or partially in construction. Therefore, using waste materials such as garnet to replace river sand either partially or fully will conserve our environment and more sustainable solutions. Concrete block pavement (CBP) uses river sand as its bedding sand layer. Therefore, there is the chance of garnet either in part or in full to replace river sand in the pavement constructions. The objective of the study was to determine the effect on the grading curve and the fineness modulus when the various contents of the sand-garnet ratio were used as the pavement-bedding layer. Sieve analysis was conducted to meet the grading requirements according to BS 882 while ASTM C33 was used as the reference in terms of modulus of fineness. The research found that only samples of type 9S1G and 8S2G meet the requirements as a material for the application of pavement base layer to replace part of the sand. In addition, the 9S1G and 8S2G type samples meet ASTM C33, which recommends that the fineness modulus value must be from 2.30 to 3.10 i.e., the fineness modulus value for 9S1G and 8S2G type sample is 2.77 and 2.81 respectively. Therefore, this research suggests that the percentage of garnet replacement for pavement bedding sand layer application is up to 20%.