Valorisation of C&D waste as backfill material of geosynthetic reinforced structures - study of the long-term behaviour

This paper presents an overview of the research project CDW_LongTerm - Valorisation of Construction and Demolition Wastes in geosynthetic reinforced structures - Prediction of long-term behaviour and summarizes its main conclusions. Mixed fine-grain recycled aggregates obtained from non-selected C&D waste, with low market acceptance for other applications such as pavement base layers and concrete production, were used in this study. Changes on the geotechnical and geoenvironmental behaviour of recycled C&D materials induced by real weather conditions and other agents (such as, compaction or wet-drying cycles), the durability and creep behaviour of the geosynthetics, the long-term behaviour of geosynthetic/C&D material interfaces and the long-term performance of a full-scale model have been studied. In general, the results show an acceptable long-term performance of the materials, of the recycled C&D materials/geosynthetic interfaces and of full-scale model.