Iron production’s waste materials include significant quantities of blast furnace slag (BFS) which could potentially be used as a substitute for natural aggregates in hot mix asphalt (HMA) used in highway projects. Although many of properties of slag are interesting, its porosity and absorption rate would lead to greater consumption of asphalt. For this study, a Portland cement (PC) paste was used to reduce the porosity of a BFS. This PC treated BFS (called BFS-C) was then used in an HMA to replace the coarse fraction of a natural aggregate. Marshall, Indirect Tensile Strength (ITS), resilient modulus and Cantabro tests were then carried out on different HMA mixtures that included BFS-C. Using BFS-C, HMA’s resistance under monotonic loading, stiffness under cyclic loading, and resistance to moisture damage increased remarkably. In addition, the Cantabro abrasion resistance of BFS-C improved was better than that of the HMA mixture produced with untreated BFS.

Throughout the world, considerable quantities of water treatment sludge (WTS) and sewage sludge (SS) are produced as waste. This study assessed in the laboratory, the possibility to use both waste products when they are incorporated as filler at 1% with relation to the total mass of a hot mix asphalt - HMA. To this end, both waste products were initially reduced to ash through a calcination process. Resistance tests under monotonic load (Marshall and indirect tension tests), and cyclic load (resilient modulus test) were applied on mixes that contained WTS and SS. Besides, moisture damage (modified Lotmman test), and abrasion (Cantabro) resistance were assessed. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was performed in order to verify if the results are statically equal or not to those of the control HMA. As a general conclusion, it is reported that both materials show a resistance increase under monotonic load and higher stiffness under cyclic load (cohesion) when they are incorporated into the mix as filler despite the fact that the asphalt content used was less than the control mix. However, some problems are observed associated with moisture damage resistance, and friction wear (adherence).