Use of green calcium sulphoaluminate cement to prepare foamed concrete for road embankment: A feasibility study.

• Solid wastes were used as raw material to prepare green calcium sulphoaluminate cement. • The prepared standard green calcium sulphoaluminate mortar meets the current commercial standard for 52.5 N cement. • Blinds of ordinary Portland cement and green calcium sulphoaluminate cement are used produce foamed concrete for the use of road embankment. • Both fresh and hardened state properties measurements show that the proposed mixture design allows for the application of cast-in-situ foamed concrete for road embankment. This paper aims at using green calcium sulphoaluminate (GCSA) cement to prepare foamed concrete for the use of road embankment. Solid wastes were used as raw material to prepare the GCSA cement. X-ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis shows that ye'elimite, gehlenite and belite are the main mineral phases in the produced GCSA clinkers, which is in accordance with the sulphoalumiate cement (CSA). Afterwards, the GCSA cement was blended with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) as binder to make the foamed concrete. The dosage of GCSA cement in the blinds was first optimized by comparing the 3-d and 28-d compressive strengths of mixes having different amount of GCSA cement. The optimized blinds (with 25% GCSA cement) was used to design foamed concrete mixes with wet density of 700 kg/m3, 800 kg/m3 and 900 kg/m3 using different amount of foam. Stability and consistency measurements were conducted at the fresh state. Mechanical measurements including compressive strength, flexural strength, splitting strength, elastic modulus and California bearing ratio were conducted at the hardened state. The measurements show that the proposed mixes have good spread ability and stability and high strength, elastic modulus and bearing capacity, indicating that the proposed mixtures can be accepted in industry practice for the in-situ foam concrete road embankment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]