A Study on Utilization of Crusher Dust in Place of Sand as a Geotechnical Construction Material

Usually, conventional materials like natural soils, broken rock pieces, sand are required for the construction of many Civil Engineering structures like rods, embankments, reclamation of grounds etc.,. Procurement of such materials in huge quantities have been becoming very difficult and presence of plastic fines in the soils causes excess deformations which proves to be costly for the maintenance of structures keeping this in mind for utilization of waste products in bulk quantities has been searched from which crusher dust was selected as an alternate material in place of sand. To evaluate the performance of crusher dust and sand mixes, tests like compaction, strength, seepage etc, were performed to study engineering parameters like density, CBR and angle of shearing resistance etc. From the test results it is identified that crusher dust –sand mixes attained high densities (γd>1.8g/cc), high CBR values (>10%), shear parameters (�• >360) and maintained pervious characteristics (k > cm/sec) in addition to non-plastic and incompressibility characteristics. From the test results it is concluded that 30-40% addition of sand to crusher dust yields satisfactory results and can be used as sub-grade and fill materials in various geotechnical construction activities.