Investigation of geotechnical properties and bearing capacity performance of blast furnace slag

In this study, the geotechnical characterization of blast furnace slag (bfs) was investigated and the bearing capacity performance was analyzed. in order to investigate the particle size effect on bearing capacity, bfs was separated two parts called fine (dmax=4.75 mm) and coarse (dmax=9.50 mm) grain size distributions. basic engineering properties of the bfs, such as particle size distribution, specific gravity, ph, optimum water content, maximum dry unit weight, and consistency limits were determined according to astm standards. thereafter, california bearing ratio (cbr) tests were conducted for coarse (d-9.50) and fine (d-4.75) grained bfs samples. the samples were prepared with standard proctor (sp) and modified proctor (mp) energies to examine the compaction energy effect on cbr value. in order to determine the pore fluid effect on bearing performance, samples were prepared with tap and sea water, after 96 hours curing period wet cbr tests were conducted. test results have shown that compaction energy affects the cbr performance significantly. it has been determined that samples compacted with mp energy has at least 2.2 times higher cbr value than samples compacted with sp energy. it has been seen that fine grained samples have higher bearing capacities than coarse grained samples. when the average cbr value of samples prepared with different pore fluids in same conditions were compared, it was seen that samples prepared with sea water have 17% higher cbr values than the others. while the geotechnical engineering properties of bfs are taken into account, it is considered that bfs can be used in various engineering applications as a fill material.