A Feasibility Study on the Application of Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) Steel Slag for Railway Ballast Material
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Date
2018-01-23
Authors
Koh, Taehoon
Moon, Sung-Woo
Jung, Hyuksang
Jeong, Yeonung
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI
Abstract
Railway ballast, for which natural crushed stone aggregates have been generally used,
is an essential track component for the distribution of train loads along the rails and sleepers to the
roadbed. However, the use of natural crushed stone aggregate causes environmental destruction
as well as dust production in train service. This paper evaluates the feasibility of using the basic
oxygen furnace (BOF) steel slag as railway ballast material. A series of physical and chemical quality
tests are performed to investigate the characteristics of the materials associated with the effect of
aging period due to the remaining free CaO and MgO in the BOF steel slag. Three different aging
periods (i.e., 0, 3, and 6 months) are used to compare with various standards and the properties
of the crushed stone aggregates. It is demonstrated that the physical and chemical properties of
the BOF steel slag with different aging periods satisfy all requirements of standards sufficiently.
Especially, the BOF steel slag without aging (i.e., 0 month) provides the similar physical and chemical
properties, when compared to the BOF steel slag with aging (i.e., 3 and 6 months). Thus, it is possible
to apply the BOF steel slag regardless of aging periods to the railway ballast materials instead of
natural crushed stone aggregates.
Description
Keywords
basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel slag, electric arc furnace (EAF) steel slag, blast furnace (BF) iron slag, railway ballast, aging, free lime
Citation
Koh, T.; Moon, S.-W.; Jung, H.; Jeong, Y.; Pyo, S. A Feasibility Study on the Application of Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) Steel Slag for Railway Ballast Material. Sustainability 2018, 10, 284.