Improvement of long-term performance of low volume road using hydraulic road binders

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The Canadian road network consists approximately 1.04 million km of paved and unpaved roads. Among these 800,000 km, or 75% are low-volume roads servicing less than 1,000 vehicles/day. Low-volume roads (LVR) are mainly oriented toward rural road systems and are very important for social and economic development in Canada. One of the key challenges of the pavement engineers is developing a cost effective pavement structure with good long-term performance of the LVRs.The main objective of this project is to find innovative, sustainable and cost effective initial construction and maintenance solutions for LVRs by addressing long-term performance under Canadian environment. The R&D work will focus on two main techniques to build LVRs using Hydraulic Road Binders (Subgrade Stabilization and Full Depth Reclamation). These techniques allow using existing in-place materials (soils and damaged pavements) and recycled materials, which minimizes the use of non-renewable aggregate resources. This system is also a sustainable practice as it increases the strength of the granular layer allowing for a thinner pavement structure for an equivalent pavement design. These types of binders used in these techniques would then allow important savings in the material cost, as well as, a significant reduction of CO2 emissions and decrease in the use of raw materials.The scientific advances will assist road engineers and designers in the use of HRBs in road construction and make them aware of greener alternatives and less expensive solutions to road construction. The cost reduction will be beneficial for tax payers and municipalities and the environmental impact of longer lasting roads and reduction in the use of non-renewable resources will be positive for the society in general.