Crude Oil Fly Ash Waste for Road Pavement Application

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of crude oil waste fly ash generated from electrical and desalination power plants in Saudi Arabia to improve the performance of asphalt flexible pavement. Several asphalt pavement materials were prepared to contain fly ash by-product waste of desalination and electrical power plants in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the paper proposed a new simple surface capacitance sensor for the assessment of asphalt pavement material. The proposed device is a low cost, simple fast and portable which makes it easy to adapt for field investigation. The results obtained from testing several asphalt pavement materials indicate the usefulness of this sensor in evaluating several critical parameters to control pavement quality conditions. These parameters include asphalt moisture condition, the effect of waste fly ash filler additives, pavement thickness, and detection of pavement cracks. The electromagnetic properties of asphalt pavement were measured using the proposed sensor in the frequency range between 100 kHz to 1000 kHz at various moisture conditions. The results show the applicability of the sensor to determine moisture and waste content in the pavement material. In addition, the sensor could be a useful tool to detect cracks of pavement and the thickness and crack orientation in asphalt pavement. The results also indicate that the waste fly ash could improve pavement properties and contribute to solve a major environmental problem in Saudi Arabia.