USE OF GLASS CULLET AS AN AGGREGATE IN BITUMINOUS MIXES FOR PAVEMENTS

Abstract

Several million tonnes of waste glass (glass cullet) are generated from glass industries across the world. The safe disposal of these waste materials has become financially and environmentally expensive. So there is a need for bulk utilisation of these materials for road construction. In developed countries like Australia, France, U.S.A and U.K etc. these materials are being used in different layers of pavements. Research in recent years indicates that there is a wide scope for the use of such materials in highway construction. The physical and chemical characteristics also ensure their suitability as road aggregates. Despite of these developments, the use of glass cullet in highway sector in India is limited to some experimental test tracks only. The main reason for this is the lack of scientific studies, standard specifications and absence of data regarding their long term behaviour. Also physical and chemical characteristic of this glass cullet varies from plant to plant depending upon the method and technology adopted for production of glass cullet in the plant. In the present study glass cutlet with various replacement rates (0%, 10%, 20% and 30%) have been used. The suitability of above materials for bituminous mixes like, Dense Bituminous Concrete (DBC) and Semi Dense Bituminous Concrete (SDBC) has been investigated in the laboratory. The results indicate that different bituminous mixes of glass cullet possess high stability in comparison to the conventional bituminous mixes, and meets the requirements of MORTH specifications. Based on the study it is recommended that glass cullet in various replacement rates as an aggregate can be used for bituminous mixes.