Does anyone have any experience with using coal fly ash as a soil stabilizer? If so, did you use ash from lignite or bituminous coal? How did it work? We have a yard that has an ongoing problem with frost boils and even after getting worked up a bit and dried out will promptly turn spongy. Unfortunately hauling everything out and starting over is not an option. Someone recommended fly ash as a stabilizer. How much will we need to put down and what's the life span of it?
It is my understanding the free lime formed in hydrated cement combines with the flyash when it is used in concrete . Do you have clay> could you use lime? cement too costly, I presume
It has all sudden become a big thing around here between streets and high school pads, bunker pads for storing grain on and the list goes on! we use 2-4 different products to mix in between kiln dust, fly ash, and just used a concrete type dust kinda depends on what the project is and what the plans call for! It is quite costly deal we charge by the square yard but if you had the equipment to do it would be different! Sounds like the same situation as what we had with the bunker pads it was sponging when they were trying to load the grain out and getting trucks stuck and we went in and mixed it and on one of them my boss said they were running wheeled skid loader around on it making black marks! I don't deal with the quantity but could ask and see if could get answer but surely someone on here knows! my 2 cents Jerry
What about kodel it is all that gets used around here. I think it is made similar to the way they make cement. I know that skid steers leave black marks on this stuff and it takes a food grader operator and machine to cut the stuff. They use it for road bases mostly around here. What about putting down some rip rap then c6 over top we have had good luck with that on field roads and such that were always soft and spongy
The reason for considering fly ash is there are a few big coal power plants not extremely far away and we are under the impression that it is relatively inexpensive. It could be that the days of fly ash being a waste product are over as I know it is being used quite extensively as an elasticizer in concrete as well as in the oilfield in various capacities.
We used flue dust from a cement plant to stabilize a parking lot on the last dollar store we did. It was brought in (20 tons) on a pressurized cement tanker. The driver had a spreader bar he hooked to the rear of the tanker, turned the compressor on and laid a 3-4" coat over the turned dirt. The problem was excessive moisture from both rain and ground water. Undercut and hauled approx. 2-4' of structural fill across the parking lot and each lift passed compaction tests at the time. Due to groundwater infiltration the fill did not pass a proof roll of the sub-base. We turned the top 1' of fill and the tanker rolled over it, spraying the flue dust. This type of application was very, very messy. There is no good way to control the dust once the tanker is pressurized and the flue dust comes out the manifold - breathing protection required. As you work the dust into the soil, it gets into every nook and cranny of each machine working it. I did this as a change order and only charged regular machine hours, I won't do that again. If I run across this procedure in the future, I'll figure a SF or SY price and double or triple it.. Working it in with the 953 Mixing the flue dust with the soil.
Interesting conversation. I was researching lime soil modification and came across this. http://www.lime.org/documents/publications/free_downloads/construct-manual2004.pdf If you scroll down the page they also talk about fly ash.