Long-term performance of sustainable pavements using ternary blended concrete with recycled aggregates

Dwindling supplies of natural concrete aggregates, the cost of landfilling construction waste, and interest in sustainable design have increased the demand for recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) in new portland cement concrete mixtures. RCA repurposes waste material to provide useful ingredients for new construction applications. However, RCA can reduce the performance of the concrete. This study investigated the effectiveness of ternary blended binders, mixtures containing portland cement and two different supplementary cementitious materials, at mitigating performance losses of concrete mixtures with RCA materials. Concrete mixtures with different ternary binder combinations were batched with four recycled concrete aggregate materials. For the materials used, the study found that a blend of portland cement, Class C fly ash, and blast furnace slag produced the highest strength of ternary binder. At 50% replacement of virgin aggregates and ternary blended binder, some specimens showed comparable mechanical performance to a control mix of only portland cement as a binder and no RCA substitution. This study demonstrates that even at 50% RCA replacement, using the appropriate ternary binder can create a concrete mixture that performs similarly to a plain portland cement concrete without RCA, with the added benefit of being environmentally beneficial.