Publications Repository - Gdańsk University of Technology

The supporting structure inside a coastal dike is often made of dredged non-uniform sand with good compaction proper-ties. Due to the shortage of natural construction material for both coastal and river dikes and the surplus of different processed mate-rials, new experiments were made with sand-ash mixtures and fine-grained dredged materials to replace both dike core and dikecover materials resulting in economical, environmentally friendly and sustainable dikes. Ash from EC Gdańsk and dredged sandfrom the Vistula river were mixed to form an engineering material used for dike construction. The optimum sand-ash compositeswere applied at a field test site to build a large-scale research dike. Fine-grained dredged materials from Germany were chosen to beapplied in a second full-scale research dike in Rostock. All materials were investigated according to the standards for soil mechanicalanalysis. This includes basic soil properties, mechanical characteristics such as grain-size distribution, compaction parameters, com-pressibility, shear strength, and water permeability. In the field, the infiltration of water into the dike body as well as the erosion re-sistance of the cover material against overflowing water was determined. Results of both laboratory and field testing are discussed inthis paper. In conclusion, the mixing of bottom ash with mineral soil, such as relatively uniform dredged sand, fairly improves thegeotechnical parameters of the composite, compared to the constituents. Depending on the composite, the materials may be suitableto build a dike core or an erosion resistant dike cover.

Authors

• dr inż. Remigiusz Duszyński link open in new tab ,
• dr inż. Angelika Duszyńska link open in new tab ,
• Stefan Cantré