Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Geotextiles and Geomembranes

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Technical note

Bottom ash as a backfill material in reinforced soil structures

Aali Pant∗, Manoj Datta, G.V. Ramana
Dept. of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 110016, India

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The paper describes the interface behaviour of bottom ash, obtained from two thermal power plants, and geogrid
Geosynthetics for possible utilization as a reinforced fill material in reinforced soil structures. Pullout tests were conducted on
Bottom ash polyester geogrid embedded in compacted bottom ash samples as per ASTM D6706-01. Locally available natural
Pullout resistance sand was used as a reference material. The pullout resistance offered by geogrid embedded in bottom ash was
Reinforced soil structures
almost identical to that in sand. In order to study the influence of placement condition of the material on pullout
resistance, test were conducted on uncompacted fill materials. Pullout resistance offered by geogrids embedded
in uncompacted specimen reduced by 30–60% than that at the compacted condition.

1. Introduction
As per the Indian Road Map 2022, around 18,637 km more ex-
pressways will be added to the Indian Road Network by the year 2022
(Dash, 2009). These will require the construction of a number of re-
inforced soil structures (RSS). A suitable backfill material for the RSS
must meet specifications regarding gradation, strength and electro-
chemical properties. Most often, the availability of naturally available
granular material at the construction site can be tough. Also due to the
environmental regulations, mining of such naturally occurring fill ma-
terials is limited. The excavation of natural material consumes vast
amount of energy and changes the landscape of the area. Thus, utili-
zation of alternative industrial waste materials is being explored by
researchers to use as structural fills in RSS. Coal ash is one such waste
material.
According to the data from World Bank 40.6% of the total electricity
produced in the world in the year 2014 was from coal source (The
World Bank, 2015) while in 1989, the power generated through coal
constituted 34%. This has lead to the production of an abundant
quantity of ash. A number of researchers have explored different areas
where coal ash can be utilized as raw material such as in cement pro-
duction (Anastasiou et al., 2014; Papayianni and Anastasiou, 2010),
brick manufacturing (Çiçek and Çinçin, 2015; Shon et al., 2009), for
soil-stabilization treatment (Brooks, 2009; Phani Kumar and Sharma,
2004), as cement-based composite (Geetha and Ramamurthy, 2010;
Gesoğlu et al., 2012), as structural fill (DiGioia and Nuzzo, 1972;
Horiuchi et al., 2000; Kim et al., 2005; Leonards and Bruce, 1982), as
raw material for glass (Sheng et al., 2003; Zhang et al., 2007).
Two types of coal ash are produced in a thermal power plant:
bottom ash and fly ash. Bottom ash is the coarser ash which is collected
from the bottom of a furnace, after being ground in a clinker grinding
unit, while fly ash is the finer ash collected from electrostatic pre-
cipitator. The ratio of bottom ash to fly ash production in thermal plants
is approximately 20:80 (Ramme and Tharaniyil, 2013).
Toth et al. (1988) reported the utilization of fly ash and bottom ash
as fill material in embankments constructed at various sites in Ontario.
The highway embankments for the Route 213/301 on Maryland's
eastern shore were constructed using fly ash in 2005. Schmitt & Cole
(2013) reported the utilization of bottom ash in the reinforced zone of a
mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall for the vertical expansion of a
sluiced coal combustion residue pond at the Trimble County Generating
Station. The bottom ash used were suitable for use in the reinforced
zone, based on strength and drainage characteristics.
One of the primary concerns in utilization of an industrial waste
product for earthworks is its impact on environment. As per the USEPA
guidelines, fossil-fuel combustion waste, including fly ash, bottom ash,
boiler slag, and flue gas emission control waste generated primarily
from the combustion of coal are non-hazardous in nature (USEPA,
2009). According to the National Hazardous Waste Management
Strategy of Ministry of Environment and Forests India (MoEF, 2015),
the high volume low effect wastes such as fly ash are not included in the
category of hazardous waste. The results of leaching test on coal bottom
ash conducted by different researchers have been summarized in
Table 1.
Research efforts are in progress by the authors to assess the interface
behaviour of bottom ash and geogrid for possible utilization as a re-
inforced fill material in MSE walls. In order to study the complex be-
haviour of the soil-geosynthetic interaction between fill material and

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: aali.pant@gmail.com (A. Pant), mdatta@civil.iitd.ac.in (M. Datta), ramana@civil.iitd.ac.in (G.V. Ramana).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2019.01.018
Received 13 August 2018; Received in revised form 22 January 2019; Accepted 23 January 2019
0266-1144/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article as: Aali Pant, Manoj Datta and G.V. Ramana, Geotextiles and Geomembranes,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2019.01.018
A. Pant, et al. Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Leaching test results on bottom ash around the world.
Reference Country Conclusion

Jones and Ruppert (2017) USA • No TCLP leachates of bottom ash samples exceeded USEPA toxicity characteristics
Lee (2011) Korea • Leaching intensity of heavy metals reduces with increase in pH. The metals found in bottom ash satisfy the limits of drinking water.
Sulphates concentration were high.
Carpenter et al. (2007) USA • Contamination of groundwater table significantly depends on the vadose zone depth. In the study undertaken the contaminants may
not reach maximum contaminants levels in the groundwater even in 200 years.
Tang et al. (2013) China • The combustion products tested are non-hazardous in nature.
Verma et al. (2015) India • The release of trace elements by TCLP is within the permissible limits for industrial effluents.
reinforcement, direct shear test and pullout test are required to be Table 2
conducted. Extensive pullout test have been reported in literature to Comparison of pH of bottom ash reported in literature and present study.
study interface behaviour of different gradation of soil and geosyn- Reference Material pH
thetics (Abdi and Mirzaeifar, 2017; Ezzein and Bathurst, 2014;
Horpibulsuk et al., 2017; Hussein and Meguid, 2016; Lajevardi et al., Jones and Ruppert (2017) Bottom Ash 8.2
2014; Mosallanezhad et al., 2016; Pinho-Lopes et al., 2016; Prasad and Lee (2011) Bottom Ash 8.0
Rani and Jain (2017) Bottom Ash 7.34
Ramana, 2016; Sukmak et al., 2015; Tin et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2016; Current Study D_BA 7.38
Yu et al., 2016). Current Study J_BA 7.38
Significant data on pullout characteristics of geogrids embedded in Current Study YS 7.25
bottom ash is not available in the literature (Pando et al., 2014). In the
current paper, pullout tests were conducted on compacted and un-
compacted bottom ash samples as per ASTM D6706, 2013. Subse- any intraparticle voids, and are observed to be substantially free of
quently, a 9 m high reinforced wall was designed assessing the potential dust, clean and shiny.
advantage of utilization of bottom ash as a structural fill material in
MSE walls. 3.2. pH

2. Materials used To maintain the durability of geogrid elements used as reinforcing

Samples of bottom ash have been collected from Dadri Thermal
Power Plant and Jhajjar Thermal Power Plant located in National
Capital Region of India (D_BA and J_BA respectively). Locally available
sand collected from river Yamuna (YS) was used as reference material.
The geogrid used for the study was uniaxial polyester geogrids coated
with PVC. The geogrid has a rectangular mesh configuration with
27 × 29 mm internal openings. The geogrid has an ultimate tensile
strength of 80 kN/m in the machine direction while 30 kN/m in the
cross-machine direction.
3. Characterization
3.1. Morphology
Fig. 1 shows the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) photo-
micrographs of D_BA, J_BA, and YS. A distinct difference between
morphological characteristics of bottom ash and sand is that the bottom
ash particles have microporous solid surface with a rough and gritty
surface texture while the sand particles have an appearance without
members in MSE walls, it is essential to check for the pH of the struc-
tural fill. The pH of the fill materials was checked as per ASTM D4972,
2013. Table 2 presents the pH of coal bottom ash as reported in the
literature and the measured values in this study. All the three materials
are slightly alkaline in nature. Leaching intensity of elements from
bottom ash depends largely on pH of the solution with more leaching
occurring at low pH (< 6) (Lee, 2011).
3.3. Grain size distribution & specific gravity
D_BA is the finest of the bottom ashes available with 20% of parti-
cles being finer than 75 μm. The J_BA particles are much coarser than
D_BA. The variation in particle size distribution and specific gravity
from different thermal power plants is due to different factors like
changes in boiler load, firing conditions, degree of pulverization of coal,
design of furnace etc (Raymond, 1961). The specific gravity was mea-
sured by density bottles as per ASTM-D854, 2014. The specific gravity
and grain size characteristics of D_BA, J_BA, and YS are summarized in
Table 3. The specific gravity of D_BA & J_BA is significantly lower than
natural soils like YS which may be due to the presence of microporous

Fig. 1. SEM images of the three fill materials.

2
A. Pant, et al. Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 3 Table 4
Particle size distribution characteristics. Angle of shearing resistance of the three materials in dry and saturated con-
dition.
Property D_BA J_BA YS
Material ϕpeak, ° (dry) ϕpeak, ° (saturated)
Coarse sand (4.75–2 mm), % 1.5 6.9 0.0
Medium sand (2 mm–425 μm), % 8.0 7.5 1.7 80% R.D 30% R.D 80% R.D
Fine sand (425 μm–75 μm), % 69.1 80.0 91.4
Silt (75 μm–2 μm), % 21.4 5.6 6.9 D_BA 43 32 42
D10, μm 68 80 85 J_BA 44 36 43
D30, μm 90 150 170 YS 42 32 41
D60, μm 180 230 230
CU 2.6 2.8 2.7
CC 0.7 1.2 1.7
screws were adjusted before shearing was initiated.
G 2.07 2.35 2.65
γdmax, kN/m3 9.41 13.76 16.93 The behaviour of the saturated and dry samples compacted at si-
OMC, % 20.4 24 14.6 milar relative density exhibit similar behaviour i.e. positive dilation and
emax 1.76 1.02 0.93 strain softening behaviour.
emin 1.20 0.73 0.57
Table 4 shows the resulting peak shear strength parameters of D_BA,
J_BA, and YS at 80% and 30% R.D under dry conditions and saturated
condition (80% R.D only). It can be observed that the angle of shearing
particles in bottom ash. Both the bottom ash samples are non-plastic in
resistance of the saturated and dry sample compacted at 80% R.D do
nature. All the three materials can be classified as silty sands (SM) as
not show significant difference. This is because when the sand sample is
per Unified Soil Classification (USC) system.
completely dry, there are no water bridges between individual particles
and the force-chain results only due to the inter-particle friction. On
3.4. Compaction characteristics complete saturation, water is evenly distributed between all contacts
and thus the force-chain of dry state gets restored leading to similar
Standard compaction test for coal ash samples was carried out as per shear behaviour of dry and saturated sand (Lu and Wu, 2006).
ASTM-D698, 2012. The minimum and maximum void ratio, maximum
dry unit weight and optimum moisture content have been summarized 4. Standard backfill material
in Table 3. The maximum dry unit weight of J_BA is much higher than
D_BA due to the high specific gravity of J_BA. The samples do not show The design and performance of a RE wall depend largely on the type
a significant peak in the compaction curve, which is a characteristic of reinforcement used and the type of backfill material. Granular soils
property of purely granular materials. Thus, coal ash can be compacted are usually the preferred backfill materials for RE structures because of
over a relatively broad range of moisture content. Hence if the ash is their high strength and ability to prevent the development of excess
utilized as a structural fill material, the moisture content in coal ash can pore water pressures. The backfill material used for RE walls/RSS must
be conveniently controlled in the field. be free from organic content, other toxic materials as specified in var-
A check for crushing of bottom ash particles due to compaction ious standards or codes of practice (BS:8006, 2010; Elias et al., 2001;
effort was conducted on both the bottom ash samples available in this IRC:SP:102, 2014). According to the codes, the backfill material must
study. The results indicated a negligible increase in the percentage of be cohesionless and plasticity index of the soil must be less than 6. The
fines (material finer than 75 μm) of 1.6–2.6% on compaction. gradation criteria specified by various standards and codes of practice
are different. Fig. 2 shows the comparison of available ash and sand
3.5. Shear strength parameters samples with the specifications of a standard backfill material pre-
scribed by FHWA, BS-8006 and IRC: SP:102. It can be observed that
The shear strength of a material is of prime importance to identify while J_BA and YS satisfy the gradation criteria specified by BS-8006
its usage as a fill material in different geotechnical applications. Direct and IRC: SP:102, D_BA only satisfies the criteria specified by IRC:
shear tests (DST) were carried out to evaluate shear strength parameters SP:102. However, all the three samples meet the physical and shear
of the three materials at dry condition on a shear box of 60 × 60 mm strength requirements. According to the FHWA guidelines, if CU of the
cross-section. The samples were compacted at two different relative backfill material is less than 4, it is mandatory to conduct pullout tests
density (R.D), i.e., 80% and 30% while conducting the test. Strength on the geogrid embedded in the fill material. The pH of the three fill
tests were performed under three normal stresses (20 kPa, 40 kPa, and materials varies from 7.25 to 7.38 satisfy the range prescribed by the
80 kPa) at a strain rate of 0.25 mm/min. From the shear strength versus international and national guidelines of MSE walls reinforced with PET
horizontal displacement results, it was observed that all the three-ma- geosynthetic.
terials exhibit strain-softening behaviour at 80% R.D while strain
hardening at 30% R.D. For the samples compacted to 80% R.D as the 5. Pullout test
displacement increased, the peak strength parameters reduce to re-
sidual strength parameters. At 30% R.D, the samples undergo com- 5.1. Apparatus
pression before the critical angle of shearing resistance is mobilized. At
80% R.D, all the materials exhibited positive dilation for all normal According to ASTM D6706, the dimensions of large-scale pullout
stresses, and the dilatancy decreased with increase in normal stress, test boxes should exceed 610 mm long, 410 mm wide, and 300 mm
characteristic behaviour of granular material (Bolton, 1986). high. Pullout box used in the present study had inner dimensions of
To study the influence of saturation on shear strength behaviour of 900 mm length, 600 mm width and a total depth of 600 m. The front
the fill materials under study, direct shear test was conducted on the wall through which the reinforcement is extended and pulled from the
materials compacted at 80% relative density. Oven dried compacted soil has a 320 mm wide slot. Sleeve plates (320 mm wide and 150 mm
samples were prepared as described above and were immersed in water long) were attached to the front wall above and below the slot to
for 24 h, upto the level of the lower box of the direct shear box. The minimize the lateral load transfer to the rigid front wall of the box. The
water seeped into the sample through drainage holes in the lower box clamping system extends inside the soil through the slot on the front
and the dry sample eventually became fully saturated. Subsequently, wall up to 300 mm (well beyond the sleeve) to minimize the neck
the desired normal load was applied on the sample and the spacing failure of the unconfined geogrid near the clamps outside the box and to

3
A. Pant, et al.
Fig. 2. Comparison of grain size distribution of fill materials with standard specifications.
Fig. 3. Pullout resistance curve of compacted samples.
allow total confinement of the geogrid during the pullout. The cross-
section of the sleeves has been designed such that during pullout, any
soil that gets entrapped between the sleeves and the clamps lay loosely
over the clamps and thus maintains no contact with the sleeve (Ramana
et al., 2018).
The pullout force can be applied at different rate of displacement
(1–19 mm/min) through a stepper motor system. The displacement of
the clamping system along the geogrid is measured using linear variable
differential transformers (LVDTs). Load cell and LVDTs are connected
to a computer data acquisition system. The pullout force is measured
using a load cell attached to the clamping system with the help of a
guiding rod. The load cell can measure the pullout load upto a max-
imum capacity of 50 kN and has a least count of 10 N.
5.2. Sample preparation and test procedure
The pullout box was filled with air-dried structural fill (D_BA/J_BA/
YS) in four layers of 150 mm thickness. The fill material was compacted
by a tamper to a thickness of 150 mm. A tamper of weight 9.6 kg was
made to fall from a height of 0.3 m to give 200 blows to each layer of
the ash/soil. After placing the initial two layers, the geogrid specimen
was positioned within the box and attached to the clamp used to apply
the pullout force. The geogrid sample had an effective length of 600 mm
and 300 mm width. After placement of the geogrid, the soil was filled in
the upper portion of the box and compacted following the same pro-
cedures used in the two initial layers. The density of the compacted
sample was measured by recording the mass of the fill material and the
volume occupied by the material in each test. Since it is difficult to
maintain the same density of the prepared sample in each test, the
4
Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
relative density of the fill material was maintained in the range of
80–85% for the three materials. An airbag was placed over the fill
surface followed by a top reaction plate. An air-bag facilitates in ap-
plying uniformly distributed pressure, which was applied using a
compressor controlled by a regulator (Palmeira and Milligan, 1989).
The applied load and the displacements were monitored until the ul-
timate pullout resistance was achieved. The pullout tests were per-
formed at three different normal stresses (20 kPa, 40 kPa & 80 kPa). The
test was conducted at a constant displacement rate of 1 mm/min as per
ASTM D6706. In order to study the effect of placement condition of the
fill material on the pull-out response, pullout tests were also conducted
on loosely deposited fill material. The fill material was not tempered
and poured through sand raining technique to simulate an under-
compacted sample. The loose samples of the three fill materials were
prepared at a relative density of 35–40%.
5.3. Pullout test results
Fig. 3 presents the pullout test results of the TG_U-80 geogrid em-
bedded in D_BA, J_BA, and YS, under different applied normal stresses.
The pullout loads measured with only clamp were deducted by the
pullout load values measured with both clamp and geogrid corre-
sponding to the same displacement. It can be observed from Fig. 3 that
the pullout resistance increases with an increase in surcharge pressure.
The geogrid shows strain softening behaviour, i.e., a gradual decrease
of the pullout resistance after peak load, independent of the type of
structural fill. Similar observations were made by Moraci and Recalcati
(2006). The pull-out load reached a peak at about 60–80 mm of dis-
placement and then decreased. The horizontal displacement
A. Pant, et al.
Fig. 4. Pullout resistance curve of uncompacted samples.
corresponding to the peak pullout load increases as the normal load
increased. The slope of pullout resistance versus displacement is steep
at initial stages when the displacement is less than 10 mm. After that,
the mobilization of pullout resistance occurs at a slower rate at further
pullout of the geogrid. Under all normal stresses the peak pull-out ca-
pacities for the geogrid embedded in either of the two ash backfills are
similar to, or slightly higher than, the pull-out capacities in soil backfill.
Koerner and Koerner (2013) studied 171 cases of failure of re-
inforced earth walls. 123 of the failure case histories had poor or
moderate compaction of the reinforced fill material. The placement
condition of the backfill plays a vital role in the mobilization of fric-
tional resistance between the fill and reinforcement interface. Fig. 4
shows the effect of under-compaction of fill material on the pullout
resistance of geogrid. The peak pullout resistance develops at sig-
nificantly less displacement of 20–50 mm. The pullout resistance of-
fered by uncompacted soil is significantly lower than that by compacted
fill (≈30–60%). This is because the sliding resistance and bearing re-
sistance offered by a geogrid against pullout is a function of angle of
shearing resistance (Jewell, 1990; Jewell et al., 1984), which reduces
sharply for an uncompacted specimen as observed in Table 4.
A densely compacted fill material tends to dilate during the pullout.
But the dilation of the soil at the soil-reinforcement interface is sup-
pressed by the surrounding soil leading to the condition of restrained
dilatancy. Due to restrained dilatancy, the normal stress at the interface
increases and results in an apparent increase in the pullout resistance
(Farrag and Griffin, 1993). A loosely deposited sample, on the other
hand, does not dilate during shearing.
It was observed that the influence of placement condition is most
significant at low normal stresses. As the normal stress increases, the fill
material starts to get self-compacted due to the overburden pressure.
This results in less variation of the peak pullout resistance between the
two different placement conditions.
Owing to similar grain size distribution and shear strength, all the
three materials exhibited similar geogrid displacement behaviour on
pullout. With an increase in density the magnitude of the interface
modulus increases and the resistance offered by the geogrid against
pullout increases. The increase in density leads to a higher concentra-
tion of strains in the geogrid and consequently lead to lower tail dis-
placement of the geogrid during pullout.
5.4. Soil-geosynthetic coefficient of interaction
The coefficient of interaction (Ci) between geogrids and cohesion-
less fill material can be estimated using equation (1) (Bernal et al.,
1997; Collin and Berg, 1993; Lopes and Ladeira, 1996; Pinho-Lopes
et al., 2016; Sugimoto and Alagiyawanna, 2003):
Ci = PR/(2Le σn tanϕ) (1)
5
Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
where PR = Peak pullout resistance per unit width (kN/m).
Le = Embedment Length of the reinforcement (m)
σn = Effective normal stress at the soil-reinforcement interface (kN/
m2)
The ϕ value used for each material corresponds to peak angle of
shearing resistance value obtained through the direct shear tests and
have been tabulated in Table 4. Ci greater than one is indicative of an
efficient bond between fill and the geogrid. If Ci is greater than one it
can be inferred that the interface shear strength between fill and geo-
synthetic is greater than the shear strength of the fill. It usually occurs
when resistance is provided by strike-through and restrained dilatancy
(Tatlisoz et al., 1998). Normally an interaction coefficient value of less
than 0.5 indicates a weak bond at the fill-geosynthetic interface. The Ci
value decreases with an increase in normal stress due to suppression of
the soil dilatancy (Moraci and Recalcati, 2006; Prasad and Ramana,
2016; Schlosser and Elias, 1978). Bacot et al. (1978) conducted pho-
tometric study and observed that pullout of the reinforcement induces
shear displacements around the surrounding soil that leads to dilation
of the soil. The dilation however gets suppressed by the surrounding
soil that results in an increase in normal stress on the reinforcement.
Restrained dilatancy is associated with the coverage ratio of the re-
inforcement (Alfaro et al., 1995). While 100% coverage ratio corre-
sponds to the condition of free dilatancy, coverage ratio of less than
100% corresponds to the condition of restrained dilatancy that en-
hances the pullout resistance of the geogrid. In the present study, the
width of the pullout box is 600 mm while the width of the geogrid is
300 mm, thereby making the coverage ratio to be 50%. At low normal
stress of 20 kPa, the interaction coefficient for the PET geogrid em-
bedded in either of the three fill materials is greater than unity. At
higher normal stress of 40 and 80 kPa, the interaction coefficients lie
between 0.5 and 1.
Fig. 5 compares the Ci values corresponding to compacted and un-
compacted material. For compacted samples, there is a sharp reduction
in the interaction coefficient values with the increase of normal stress.
Similar results have been reported by Berg and Swan (1990), Tatlisoz
et al. (1998) and Goodhue et al. (2001). The interaction coefficient for
any fill material decreases with increasing normal stress due to in-
creasing progressive failure, caused by non-uniform displacements
along the length of the geosynthetic layer (Farrag and Griffin, 1993).
The Ci values for the uncompacted specimen at all the three normal
stresses are close to or less than 0.5 indicating a weak bond between the
fill and the reinforcement. The observations are in line with the case
histories reported by Koerner and Koerner (2013) that poor placement
and compaction of backfill material is one of the core issues of MSE wall
failures. For the uncompacted samples the difference in the Ci value at
the three normal stresses is significantly less. This maybe because of
A. Pant, et al. Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

800 to 400 mm with less spacing towards the base of the wall. The
required anchorage lengths were determined using the interaction
coefficients obtained from the pullout test program. According to the
FHWA guidelines, a minimum anchorage length of 1 m must be pro-
vided against pullout failure of reinforcements beyond the failure plane.
The material parameters of the fill materials and the corresponding
number of reinforcement layers required by a 9 m high MSE walls have
been summarized in Table 5. The number of geosynthetic layers re-
quired by bottom ash is less than those by sand as fill material. For D_BA
as the fill material, 13 number of geogrid layers are needed for re-
inforcement while for YS the number of reinforcement layers required is
16. The number of reinforcement layers for J_BA is intermediate of the
two fill materials being 15 in number.
The reduction in the required number of reinforcement layers is not
due to the difference in the pullout capacity, but rather due to the low
unit weight of bottom ash. Bottom ash being lighter in weight exerts a
lower lateral active earth pressure to be resisted. Similar observations
were made by Tatlisoz et al. (1998) who assessed the potential ad-
vantages of using soil-tire chip backfills for geosynthetic-reinforced
retaining walls and embankments.
Fig. 5. Coefficient of interaction (C: Compacted; U: Uncompacted).
7. Conclusion
Table 5
Material parameters used in the design of MSE wall. Suitability of using bottom ash as a possible structural fill material
behind MSE walls has been assessed. Shear strength and interfacial
Property D_BA J_BA YS
friction characteristics of geogrid embedded in bottom ash have been
γ, kN/m 3
10.5 15.6 17.9 carried out to explore the feasibility of bottom ash as a structural fill
ϕ, ° 40 40 40 material behind MSE walls. The present study demonstrates that based
RFID 1.25 1.25 1.25
on laboratory testing, bottom ash exhibits similar pullout resistance
RFCR 2.5 2.5 2.5
RFCBD 1.3 1.3 1.3
behaviour as that of naturally occurring conventional fill materials.
No. of reinforcement layers 13 15 16 Although, to efficiently use bottom ash as a structural fill for MSE walls
and reinforced slopes, field experiments must be carried out on full-
scale reinforced walls with bottom ash as structural fill and monitoring
uniform displacement of the geogrid along its length with little exten- of its performance must be done. The following conclusions are drawn
sion. from the study:

6. Design of MSE wall with bottom ash as backfill
In the following section, design calculations were made to illustrate
the potential advantages of using coal bottom ash as a reinforced fill
material in MSE structures. A 9 m high MSE wall reinforced with
polyester geogrid of ultimate tensile strength of 80 kN/m has been
designed with no surcharge load following the procedure prescribed by
FHWA guidelines. According to FHWA guidelines, use of angle of
shearing resistance above 40° for design can be of concern due to the
uncertainty of the mobilization of shear strength above this value.
Hence, for all the three fill materials a constant angle of 40° has been
used as the angle of shearing resistance of fill. As per FHWA guidelines,
the MSE wall fill material must be compacted at ± 2 percent dry of the
OMC and a density of 95% of the maximum dry unit weight as obtained
from standard proctor test is recommended.
External stability (sliding, overturning and bearing capacity) cal-
culations were made to determine the minimum width of the reinforced
zone (0.7 times the height of the wall). For all the three fill materials,
the factor of safety against external stability was more than required.
The internal stability was checked for determining the number and
spacing of the reinforcement layers, tensile overstressing of geogrid and
pullout failure of geogrid.
The ultimate tensile strength of the geogrid was reduced to allow-
able tensile strength using reduction factors for installation damage
(RFID), creep damage (RFCR) and chemical and biological degradation
(RFCBD). Intermediate values of the reduction factors as suggested by
Koerner (1993) for the design of a MSE wall have been used. The
spacing of the reinforcement was varied along the height of the wall. As
per the FHWA guidelines, the maximum spacing between reinforce-
ments cannot be greater than 800 mm. The spacing was varied from
• The angle of shearing resistance of the D_BA, J_BA, and YS was
comparable to each other. All three materials exhibited positive
dilation for all normal stresses (20 kPa 80 kPa) at a relative density
of 80%, and dilation decreased with increasing normal stress.
• Owing to similar grain size distribution, the pullout resistance of-
fered by geogrid embedded in bottom ash was almost identical to
that in sand. The pullout resistance increased as the normal stress
increased.
• At low normal stress of ≤20 kPa, Ci value for all the materials was
greater than 1 in densely placed fill material indicating an efficient
bond between fill and the geogrid. The Ci decreased as the normal
stress increased due to suppression of dilatancy.
• Placement condition of the fill material plays a significant role in the
development of pullout resistance. Pullout resistance offered by
geogrids embedded in uncompacted specimen reduced by 60-30%
than that at the compacted condition. The difference decreased as
the normal stress increased due to self-compaction at large normal
stress.
• The number of reinforcement layers required by a 9 m high MSE
wall was less with bottom ash as the structural fill material than
with sand. It was due to the lower lateral active earth pressure ex-
erted by the lightweight bottom ash.
• The results obtained from this study provide designers with basic
data only, for preliminary design calculations for the reinforcement
of MSE walls with bottom ash as structural fill.
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