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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13900.
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TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2008 www.TRB.org N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP REPORT 597 Subject Areas Pavement Design, Management, and Performance Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction Kevin J. Folliard Lianxiang Du UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN Austin, TX David Trejo Ceki Halmen TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY College Station, TX Scott Sabol VERMONT TECHNICAL COLLEGE Randolph Center, VT Dov Leshchinsky UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE Newark, DE Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. This program is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of the Association and it receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies was requested by the Association to administer the research program because of the Board’s recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. The Board is uniquely suited for this purpose as it maintains an extensive committee structure from which authorities on any highway transportation subject may be drawn; it possesses avenues of communications and cooperation with federal, state and local governmental agencies, universities, and industry; its relationship to the National Research Council is an insurance of objectivity; it maintains a full-time research correlation staff of specialists in highway transportation matters to bring the findings of research directly to those who are in a position to use them. The program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators of the highway and transportation departments and by committees of AASHTO. Each year, specific areas of research needs to be included in the program are proposed to the National Research Council and the Board by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Research projects to fulfill these needs are defined by the Board, and qualified research agencies are selected from those that have submitted proposals. Administration and surveillance of research contracts are the responsibilities of the National Research Council and the Transportation Research Board. The needs for highway research are many, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program can make significant contributions to the solution of highway transportation problems of mutual concern to many responsible groups. The program, however, is intended to complement rather than to substitute for or duplicate other highway research programs. Published reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at: http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America NCHRP REPORT 597 Project 24-12(01) ISSN 0077-5614 ISBN 978-0-309-09930-1 Library of Congress Control Number 2008924534 © 2008 Transportation Research Board COPYRIGHT PERMISSION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. Such approval reflects the Governing Board’s judgment that the program concerned is of national importance and appropriate with respect to both the purposes and resources of the National Research Council. The members of the technical committee selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for recognized scholarly competence and with due consideration for the balance of disciplines appropriate to the project. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied are those of the research agency that performed the research, and, while they have been accepted as appropriate by the technical committee, they are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. Each report is reviewed and accepted for publication by the technical committee according to procedures established and monitored by the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee and the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, the Federal Highway Administration, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the individual states participating in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of this report.

CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP REPORT 597 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs Edward T. Harrigan, Senior Program Officer Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Natalie Barnes, Editor NCHRP PROJECT 24-12(01) PANEL Field of Soils and Geology—Area of Mechanics and Foundations Robert A. Burnett, New York State DOT, Albany, NY (Chair) David Riley, Ohio DOT, Columbus, OH Edward J. Hoppe, Virginia DOT, Charlottesville, VA David J. Horhota, Florida DOT, Gainesville, FL Theodore Maynard, Chicago, IL Jon I. Mullarky, Chester, MD Tommy E. Nantung, Indiana DOT, West Lafayette, IN Tom Papagiannakis, University of Texas–San Antonio, San Antonio, TX Michael Adams, FHWA Liaison G. P. Jayaprakash, TRB Liaison AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research reported herein was performed under NCHRP Project 24-12(01) by the University of Texas at Austin (Department of Civil Engineering) and Texas A&M University (Department of Civil Engineering). The work undertaken at Texas A&M University was under a subcontract from the University of Texas. Kevin J. Folliard, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, was the principal investigator, and David Trejo, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering, was the co-principal investigator. Other authors of this report are Lianxiang Du, former Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, now Research Engi- neer with the Texas Department of Transportation; Ceki Halmen, former Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University, now post-doctoral researcher at the same institution; Scott Sabol, former director of the Delaware Transportation Institute, now Associate Professor at Vermont Technical College; and Dov Leshchinsky, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Delaware. The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of a host of students, faculty, and staff at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S

This report summarizes the results of a project to evaluate the use of controlled low- strength material (CLSM) in highway construction applications, in particular, as backfill, utility bedding, and void fill and in bridge approaches. A key product presented herein is a recommended practice for the use of CLSM that was validated through a series of full-scale field experiments. The report will be of particular interest to materials and construction engineers in state highway agencies and industry. CLSM is a highly flowable material typically composed of water, cement, fine aggregates, and, possibly, fly ash or other by-product materials. CLSM is used in a wide range of high- way construction applications where its ability to flow into and fill voids without the need for compaction provides significant benefits over the use of compacted fill. As the use of CLSM has evolved, so has the need for well-founded methods and specifi- cations for the design of CLSM and its control during placement as a backfill envelope or fill material in specific highway applications. Ideally, these methods and specifications will be based on achieving desired performance characteristics rather than merely producing a material satisfying a recipe-type specification. Thus, development of these design and construction methods and specifications presupposes a thorough understanding and knowledge of how (1) the characteristics of CLSM constituents are related to composite properties that control field performance and (2) key material properties may be monitored in the field. Under NCHRP Project 24-12(01), “Controlled Low-Strength Material for Backfill, Util- ity Bedding, Void Fill, and Bridge Approaches,” the University of Texas—Austin and its major subcontractor, Texas A&M University, were assigned the tasks of (1) defining the properties of CLSM necessary for its satisfactory use as backfill, utility bedding, and void fill, and in bridge approaches; (2) developing, for these applications, test methods and specifi- cation criteria for the performance-related properties of CLSM, including its corrosion potential and possible environmental impact; (3) identifying how the properties of its con- stituent materials influence the performance of CLSM; (4) developing field methods to monitor in-place properties of CLSM for construction acceptance; and (5) preparing design criteria and construction guidelines for CLSM that take advantage of its properties for back- fill, utility bedding, void fill, and bridge approaches. The research team designed and conducted a major program of laboratory and field experiments to accomplish these tasks. The results of this experimental program demon- strated that CLSM is an effective, innovative material providing excellent short- and long- term performance in all applications of interest. As with any highway construction mate- F O R E W O R D By Edward T. Harrigan Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

rial, CLSM must be used in conjunction with a good quality acceptance program and with an awareness of its unique properties in order to avoid improper usage. The research also provided guidance on potential problems with the use of CLSM and precautions to avoid them. For example, excessive long-term strength gain of CLSM can lead to difficulties in its future excavation. Excessive strength gain was most commonly observed when fly ash was used as a CLSM component, especially in hot weather. Another issue of concern was the potential for corrosion of metallic pipe in CLSM. In general, embedding pipe in CLSM was found to reduce the potential for its corrosion due to the reduced permeability of CLSM compared with compacted fill as well as beneficial changes in pH and resistivity of pore solutions in the CLSM microstructure. This report presents the full text of the contractor’s final report of the project and three of the five appendices, which present the test methods (Appendix B), specifications (Appen- dix C), and practice (Appendix D) recommended for implementation. The corrosion study (Appendix A) and implementation plan (Appendix E) are available as NCHRP Web-Only Document 116 on the TRB website (www.trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=8714).

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 3 Chapter 1 Introduction and Scope 3 Introduction 3 Research Objectives 4 Overview of Report 5 Chapter 2 State of the Art and Current Practice 5 Introduction 5 Historical Background 5 Materials 5 Portland Cement 6 Supplementary Cementitious Materials 6 Aggregates 7 Water 7 Chemical Admixtures 7 Other Materials Used in CLSM 7 Mixture Proportions 8 Batching, Mixing, and Transporting 8 Properties of CLSM 8 Fresh CLSM Properties 9 Hardened CLSM Properties 11 Durability and Environmental Issues Related to CLSM 14 CLSM Applications 14 Backfill 14 Utility Bedding 14 Void Fill 14 Bridge Approaches 14 Other CLSM Applications 14 Summary of 1998 Questionnaire 14 CLSM Usage by State DOTs 16 Quality Assurance and Quality Control 16 Summary 17 Chapter 3 Laboratory Testing Program 17 Introduction 17 Research Approach 17 Materials 18 Mixture Proportions 21 Testing Program 21 Overview 21 Mixing Procedure

24 Fresh CLSM Test Methods 26 Hardened CLSM Test Methods 30 Durability Test Methods 33 Results and Discussion 33 Fresh Properties 35 Hardened CLSM Properties 49 Durability Test Methods 59 Summary 61 Chapter 4 Field Evaluations of CLSM 61 Introduction 61 Research Approach 61 Field Testing Plan 62 Field Test at the University of Texas–Austin 62 Introduction 62 Materials and Mixture Proportions 63 Experimental Program 63 Results and Findings 67 Excavation Study at NRMCA (Silver Spring, Maryland) 67 Introduction 67 Background Information 67 Testing Program 67 Results and Discussion 69 Field Test at Hamilton County, Ohio 69 Introduction 69 Experimental Program 71 Construction 71 Test Results 72 Field Test at East Bay Municipal Utility District 72 Introduction 73 Materials and Mixture Proportions 73 Experimental Program 73 Test Results 75 Field Evaluation of CLSM for Bridge Approach Repair (TxDOT) 75 Introduction 75 Research Program 80 Monitoring of Backfill Materials 81 Monitoring of Field Performance 82 Field Test at Texas A&M University 82 Introduction 83 Site Layout and Construction 85 Testing Program 86 Test Results 87 Long-Term Corrosion Testing 87 Summary of Key Findings from Field Tests 89 Chapter 5 Conclusions and Suggested Research 89 Conclusions 90 Suggested Research

91 References A-1 Appendix A Corrosion Study B-1 Appendix B Recommended Test Methods for CLSM C-1 Appendix C Recommended Specifications for CLSM D-1 Appendix D Recommended Practice for CLSM E-1 Appendix E Implementation Plan

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 597: Development of a Recommended Practice for Use of Controlled Low-Strength Material in Highway Construction explores the use of controlled low-strength material (CLSM) in highway construction applications, in particular, as backfill, utility bedding, and void fill and in bridge approaches. The report also examines a recommended practice for the use of CLSM that was developed through a series of full-scale field experiments.

This report presents the full text of the contractor’s final report of the project and three of the five appendices, which present the test methods (Appendix B), specifications (Appendix C), and practice (Appendix D) recommended for implementation. The corrosion study (Appendix A) and implementation plan (Appendix E) are available online as NCHRP Web-Only Document 116.

There is a summary document, Paths to Practice, available.

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