Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Analysis of furnace slag in railway sub-ballast based on experimental

tests and DEM simulations
Wenli Jia a, V.L. Markine a, Guoqing Jing b,⇑
a
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft 2628CN, Netherlands
b
School of Civil Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China

h i g h l i g h t s

Introducing furnace slag as railway sub-ballast.

The breakage and abrasion properties are analysed.

The performance of furnace slag for sub-ballast was analysed.

A comparison between furnace slag with traditional sub-ballast.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Under the high requirement of ballast materials and the frequent maintenance of high-speed and heavy-
Received 14 December 2020 haul railway, the maintenance cost and material consumption become an important problem. Several
Received in revised form 2 March 2021 methods are used to increase the stability and service life of railway structure, also using recycled mate-
Accepted 16 March 2021
rials in ballast bed construction can be a way for railway sustainable development. Thus, an idea of using
Available online 29 March 2021
furnace slag as the sub-ballast was put forward in this research. To qualify the performance of furnace
slag, a series of tests were carried out, including single particle crushing test, direct shear test, box stiff-
Keywords:
ness test, and the crushed stone which is the traditional sub-ballast material was used as a comparison. In
Furnace slag
Sub-ballast
addition, the test and numerical simulation on box stiffness were carried. Results show that furnace slag
Stiffness tests has less possible to breakage and abrasion, its shear resistance is 16.46%–19.48% higher, and 20.44%–
Direct shear test 26.04% decrease in shear dilatancy. However, the stiffness for single particle shows not much difference,
DEM the box stiffness test and simulation indicated that furnace slag has a higher capacity and better elastic-
ity. Based on that, this research provides the feasibility of using furnace slag as the sub-ballast, and it
works as an environment-friendly way in railway construction.
Ó 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

1. Introduction needed, such as tamping and ballast renewal. As a consequence,

the consumption of materials and labours, during those mainte-
Ballast track bed consists of two granular layers, the ballast nance processes, causes great economic costs and environmental
layer and the sub-ballast layer, and it is normally constructed by problems. Prolong the life span of ballast track by reinforcement
crushed stone. The function of the ballast bed is to provide a bear- method and sustainable railway systems using recycled materials
ing for rails, resistance to sleepers, to keep the geometry of track, are needed to be studied.
and responsible for draining water away from the track and elas- In one aspect, several methods are used to reinforce ballast
tics of the tracks. With the development of railway, the axle load layer, for example, the use of geogrid increase the resistance
and the speed of trains increase largely, putting a higher require- between ballast and decrease the settlement [2], and it can be used
ment for the function of ballast track bed [1]. To keep the safety not only in ballast layer but also in sub-ballast [3,4], geocell has the
and stability of railway, more and more frequent maintenance is similar function with geogrid in reinforcement [5]. Elastic mat or
pad (ballast mat, rail pad, and under sleeper pad) can increase
the elastic, decrease the vibration, and enlarge the area of force dis-
⇑ Corresponding author. tribution thus decrease the process of ballast degradation [6–8].
E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Jing).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.123114
0950-0618/Ó 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

Polyurethane can bond ballast in the contact point thus increase 2. Material specification
the capacity and keep the drainage ability at the same time
[9,10]. Those reinforcement methods all show their effect and have Furnace slag used in this research is shown in Fig. 1(a), its den-
been proved in practice. sity is 2250 kg/m3. With the function of filter, the particle size of
In another aspect, using recycled materials is also a good way sub-ballast needs to stay in a range of Particle Size Distribution
for sustainable development. For example, the rubber from tires (PSD), which is shown in Fig. 2. So, the slag was sieved and
can be a resource for rubber mat or pad manufacture [11], directly remixed, and the PSD curve is also shown in Fig. 2. In comparison,
added crushed rubber into ballast layer also can decrease the bal- the traditional sub-ballast is granite material, i.e. the crushed
last degradation [12–14]. Research on the degraded ballast shows stone, and it is showed in Fig. 1(b), with the density of 2800 kg/
that it can be reused by mixed with fresh ballast [15]. Another m3, and it is saved and mixed by the same PSD with furnace slag.
material is slag, which is a byproduct of iron production (around
12%–16% slag by weight is generated [16]). Based on this huge
2.1. Single particle crushing strength
amount and the similar properties with crushed stone, slag has
used in construction, also drew the attention of railway area.
During the daily operation of railway, particle breakage is a key
Slag can be divided into furnace slag and steel slag, according to
process contributing to degradation, thus SPCT was employed to
the different process in iron steel making. Furnace slag is a bypro-
find out the crushing property of single particle, and the test device
duct in the first stage when using iron ore to produce pig iron, and
is shown in Fig. 3. During this test, the sample was crushed by
steel slag is a byproduct when using the iron to produce steel.
stress controlling method, i.e. after located the slag, the loading
Among them, steel slag can replace granular materials in normal
plate was moving with a certain force to time speed (0.1 kN/s) until
concrete manufacture [17–19], asphalt concrete [20] and pave-
the particle breakage happened. The stress-displacement curve
ment [21]. With a similar property of stone, and even better pros-
was supervised by the auto-controlling system. During the crush-
perities in interlock performance, higher density (3100–3500 kg/
ing process, the breakage is initiated with the fracture by tensile
m3), and high resistance to abrasion [22,23], steel slag also can
failure, and it can be described with Eq. (1) [29]. Due to the influ-
be used in the ballast layer. Delgado et al. [16] studied the mechan-
ence of particle size, 3 different size (5 mm 10 mm and 20 mm)
ical performance of inert steel slag ballast by comparing it with
was selected, and each size included 5 particles.
granite ballast (both of them are scaled with 1:2.5 size), results
show that slag has higher shear strength and lower deformation r ¼ F=d2 ð1Þ
in long-term behaviour. Esmaeili et al. [22] did the comparing tests
on lateral resistance between steel slag and limestone ballast, where d is the diameter of particle which is also related to the dis-
results show a 27% increase can be observed by using steel slag. tance of loading plate and the platform, F is the compressive force,
Morata et al. [24] employed steel slag as track bed layer, and andr is the tensile stress.
results show it has an improvement in track stiffness, track stabil- The peak compressive force, sorted different particle sizes, is
ity, bearing capacity (strength), and durability. Although those shown in Fig. 4(a), and the tensile strength, calculated refer to
research shows the good performance of steel slag in railway sys- Eq. (1), is shown in Fig. 4(b). Because the crushing test is not only
tem, a vital problem of electrical conductivity exists, because of the related to particle size, but also the loading point, loading direc-
chemical composition of steel slag [25]. This property will cause tion, and particle geometry. The peak compressive force and the
communication problems for railway safety. tensile strength are shown with a range where 5 particles for each
Another kind is furnace slag with a particle size of 10–30 mm. It size are included. Especially for furnace slag, the inner void is in an
has a smaller density than steel slag, the value is around 2000 kg/ inhomogeneous distribution, thus the test results show a relatively
m3, the strength is also lower than steel slag. With those proper- wide range. In Fig. 4, it is obvious that the strength of furnace slag
ties, furnace slag is considered not a proper material for the ballast is higher than the traditional sub-ballast, the value increases 39%,
layer. But in another way, it can be a resource for sub-ballast. 20%, 26% for 5 mm, 10 mm, and 20 mm, respectively. For both fur-
Sub-ballast is a granular layer provided bearing to ballast layer, nace slag and crushed stone, when the particle size increase, the
and as a filter to provided ballast directly contact with soil founda- peak compressive force is increased, but the tensile strength is
tion or soil fill in ballast layer under cyclic loading [26,27]. The decreased, thus proved that the bigger particle is more likely to
requirement of physical properties for sub-ballast is a lot lower break.
than ballast, i.e. the Los Angeles Abrasion index (LAA), compression The crushing process can be explained by the displacement and
strength, the Particle size distribution is in a range from 0.075 mm force curve. In Fig. 5, the curve of 6 particles were drawn as repre-
to 45 mm, and it has no electrical conductivity requirement. sentative, whose peak compressive force is approximate to the
Indraratna et al. [28] studied several parameters (the permeability, mean value. According to the curve, the crushing process began
stress-strain behaviour, strain energy absorption, particle break- when the compressive force appears. The first stage is the initial
age, swell pressure, and axial displacement under cyclic loading) contact of the loading plate and particle, it shows a slow increase
of the mixture of furnace slag, coal wash, and rubber crumbs work- of the compressive force, and some fluctuations were observed
ing as sub-ballast. The results of Indraratna et al. [28] show that by because of the angularity breakage. Those fluctuations are more
controlling the ratio of different materials, the mixture can reach obvious in the test for furnace slag due to the inner void. Then
higher performance than the traditional sub-ballast. the second stage shows a linear relationship between the deforma-
Based on the researches mentioned above, it is possible to use tion and the force. After the compressive force reaches a peak
furnace slag as sub-ballast. Thus, aiming to find out the behaviour value, the curve shows a linear decrease, indicating the final
of furnace slag for sub-ballast, this study conducted a series of tests failure.
and simulations, and a comparison between crushed stone was Except for 5 mm particles, for which the existence of fluctuation
analysed. The direct shear tests were employed to show the shear affects the analysis, the second stage of the crushing can be
performance, Single Particle Crushing Tests (SPCT) and LAA tests regarded as an elastic shortening process, and it presents the stiff-
were employed to show the strength and the resistance to abra- ness of the material. By calculating the slope, the stiffness of
sion, the image analysis based on 3D scanning is used to show 10 mm furnace slag is 1.78e6N/m–3.75e6N/m, 20 mm furnace slag
the shape property, and simulations based on DEM was used to is 2.14e6N/m–2.52e6N/m, and the value for 10 crushed stone is
show the shear behaviour in mesoscopic. 2.11e6N/m–3.93e6N/m, 20 mm crushed stone is 1.42e6N/m–2.25
2
W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

(a) Furnace slag (b) Crushed stone

Fig. 1. Material for tests.

N/m, as shown in Table 1. However, results are in a relatively big

range, it can be seen that furnace slag has a higher stiffness than
crushed stone.

2.2. Resistance to abrasion

In addition, the abrasion resistance is shown by LAA tests, as

shown in Fig. 6. For sub-ballast, the test sample should be departed
into 2 parts: 10–16 mm particle 2500 g, and 16–20 mm particle
2500 g. 8 iron balls, with a total weight of 3330 ± 20 g, are mixed in
the chamber. The test is conducted with the chamber rotates 500
rounds (31–33 r/min) [30], During this process, the particle is facing
impaction and abrasion, and after the tests, the aggregate should be
re-sieved and cleaned and weighted, and calculated by Eq. (2).

G1 G2
LAA ¼  100% ð2Þ
G1
The Los Angeles abrasion index (LAA, %) is defined by Eq. (2),
where G1 is the total weight of particle before abrasion (g), and
G2 is the weight of particle size bigger than 1.7 mm after abrasion
(g). The test value for furnace slag is 26.04%, and crushed stone is
Fig. 2. Particle size distribution for sub-ballast.
31.28%. However, in the SPCT, furnace slag showed angularity
breakage in the initial stage which may increase the LAA, the

(a) Test device (b) Crushing plate

Fig. 3. Single particle crushing test.

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W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

(a) Compressive force (b) Tensile strength

Fig. 4. Data of SPCT.

(a) Furnace slag (b) Crushed stone

Fig. 5. Displacement-compressive force curve.

Table 1
Particle stiffness according to SPCT (*e6N/m).

Material Size Particle 1 Particle 2 Particle 3 Particle 4 Particle 5 Average

Furnace slag 10 mm 3.48 2.56 3.18 3.75 1.78 2.95
20 mm 2.00 2.52 2.11 2.14 2.42 2.23
Crushed stone 10 mm 3.24 2.29 2.11 3.93 2.77 2.87
20 mm 2.19 1.42 2.25 1.55 2.01 1.88

abrasion resistance is higher than the traditional sub-ballast. Over- accuracy of the result, Jewell et al. [31] suggested that the length
all, the SPCT and LAA show that furnace slag has better perfor- of the shear box compare with the D50 should be larger than 50,
mance both on the resistance to breakage and abrasion. Wang et al. [32] suggest that the size of the shear box should be at
least 60 times larger than particle size for sand, and the standard
ASTM D 3080-90 [33] suggested that the values should be larger
3. Experimental tests
than 10. In this research, the apparatus consists of a lower box and
an upper box, with both size of 300 mm * 300 mm * 100 mm. The
3.1. Direct shear test
D50 of the sample with the PSD (as Fig. 2) is around 7.1 mm, and
the biggest particle size is around 25 mm. The sample is loaded
The direct shear test apparatus is shown in Fig. 7. Size scale in a
and compacted in the shear box, and a plate which covering the
direct shear test is an important factor, which will influence the
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W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

(a) Test apparatus (b) Sample with iron ball inside the chamber
Fig. 6. Los Angeles abrasion.

(a) Test apparatus (b) Schematic diagram

Fig. 7. Direct shear test apparatus.

sample is used to transmit the normal pressure. A bearing set is put the shear stress, strain, and dilatancy are automatically recorded by
on the plate to keep the loading and diminish the friction between the computer.
the upper box and the servo loading jack. Then the servo system Test results are shown in Fig. 8. It should be noticed that, for
begins to work which controls the normal stress of 50 kPa 100 kPa furnace slag under 200 kPa normal pressure, there is a drop-
and 200 kPa corresponding to different test conditions. During the down occurred around 22 mm displacement, due to some slide
shear process, the upper box is moving with a speed of 0.2 mm/ happened in the box. And, an increase with fluctuation can be seen
min until the shear strain reaches 10% (30 mm shear displacement), in the end state. However, those trends are different from others,

(a) Furnace slag (b) Crushed stone

Fig. 8. Displacement-shear stress curve.

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W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

Fig. 9. Peak shear stress and shear dilatancy.

the result is still valid because the peak force is observable. The
peak shear stress of furnace slag is 83.27 kPa, 140.25 kPa,
245.28 kPa, and for crushed stone, the peak shear stress is
71.50 kPa, 117.95 kPa, 205.29 kPa, both of them are according to
normal stress 50 kPa, 100 kPa, 200 kPa, respectively. It can be seen
that furnace slag all shows an increase than the traditional sub-
ballast under 3 different normal stress. The increase reaches
16.46%, 18.91%, and 19.48%.
In addition, the normal stress and peak shear stress of different
condition is shown in Fig. 9(a). The linear fitting is related to 2 con-
stants, the cohesion and the tangent of friction angle. The use of
furnace slag increases the frictional angle from 41.65 to 47.09°,
comparing with crushed stone. The cohesion of furnace slag pre-
sents a bigger value than crushed stone, which is 30.75 kPa and
27.83 kPa, respectively. Since the same PSD is used for those 2
materials, the increase in friction angle and cohesion is mainly
Fig. 10. Test results for box stiffness.
related to the particle shape and surface texture. In Fig. 9(b), the
final shear dilatancy of furnace slag is 5.99 mm, 4.28 mm,
3.28 mm, corresponding to the normal stress 50 kPa, 100 kPa,
and 200 kPa, and the value for crushed stone is 8.01 mm,
5.80 mm, and 4.12 mm, respectively. The 20.44%–26.04% decrease
in dilatancy also indicates that furnace slag has better shear perfor-
mance than crushed stone.

3.2. Stiffness tests

The stiffness tests were carried by the same device with direct
shear tests (Fig. 7), only changing the loading part with a
150 mm diameter disk. The loading process for this part was rea-
lised by controlling the loading disk downward at a certain speed
(0.2 mm/min) which can be regarded as a quasi-static loading pro-
cess, and the stop condition is when the displacement reaches
4 mm. During the test, displacement and force are recorded for
stiffness calculation.
Test results are shown in Fig. 10. For furnace slag, the peak com-
pressive force is 14.41 kN, (815.57 kPa), and the displacement at
peak force is 3.15 mm. For crushed stone, the peak compressive
force is 11.89 kN, (673.02 MPa), and the displacement at peak force
is 2.06 mm. Under this test condition, the stiffness of furnace slag is
4.57e6 N/m, and the value for crushed stone is 5.77e6 N/m. Thus,
the capacity and elasticity of furnace slag are all better than
crushed stone. In addition, the numerical simulation for this test Fig. 11. Model after initial balance.

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W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

Table 2 carried out, and the simulation was conducted with the software
Parameters of linear contact model in simulations. PFC3D. In accordance with the laboratory test, the model builds a
Parameters Furnace slag Crushed stone Box 300 mm * 300 mm * 200 mm box and a 150 mm diameter loading
Tangential stiffness (N/m) 2.7e6 2.2e6 1e8 plate, these two components are both ‘‘wall” element. This element
Normal stiffness (N/m) 2.6e6 2.3e6 1e8 can bear force but cannot transfer force, so the loading process was
Friction coefficient 0.5 0.4 0.2 conducted by applying a Z-velocity, and the macroscopic result
Mass density (kg/m3) 2250 2800 – was recorded by supervising the displacement and counterforce
Damping coefficient 0.7 0.7 –
of the plate. Due to the particle size and porosity, the model con-
tains more than 500,000 particles. Considering the model scale,
particle size and time consumption problem, the model uses ‘‘ball”
element to present the aggregate material. The model is shown in
Fig. 11 In addition, to differentiate furnace slag and crushed stone,
the ‘‘kn” (shear stiffness) and ‘‘ks” (tangential stiffness) in a linear
contact model were set referring to the average value of the results
of SPCT. According to the direct shear test, the frictional furnace
slag is higher than crushed stone, thus a higher frictional
coefficient is set for furnace slag model. Together with the refer-
ence from previous researches [34–36], the final parameter is
shown in Table 2, and the validation is provided by the deforma-
tion and force curve in Fig. 12, where the curve of simulation fitted
the test results.
In Fig. 12, the peak force of furnace slag is 14.03 kN (14.41 kN in
laboratory test), and the displacement at peak force is 3.11 mm
(3.15 mm in laboratory test). For crushed stone, the peak compres-
sive force is 11.44 kN (11.89 kN in laboratory test), and the dis-
Fig. 12. Validation for DEM model. placement at peak force is 2.16 mm (2.06 mm in laboratory test).
Fig. 13 shows the force chain at the peak state and finish state of
the simulation, where the line presents the contact and the colour
was used to analyse the contact and force distribution in the presents the value of the force. In Fig. 13(a) and (c), the peak state
following. shows a denser force chain than the finish state in Fig. 13(b) and
(d). Especially in the top corner, along with the loading process
4. Numerical simulations after peak state, ballast in this area gradually loses its function. It
is because under the unconfined top layer (except the loading
DEM is a method used to analysis the mesoscopic characteristic plate), the interlock between ballast is broken. When compared
of aggregate materials, the coordination number, stress distribu- the two materials, it’s obvious that furnace slag shows a denser
tion, and contact force, and displacement can be shown by this force chain and wider distribution, as the dash line, it provides
method. In this study, the simulation of box stiffness test was the explanation for the macroscopic result. In detail, at the peak

(a) Furnace slag at peak state (b) Furnace slag at finish state

(c) Crushed stone at peak state (d) Crushed stone at finish state
Fig. 13. Force chain (unit: N).

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W. Jia, V.L. Markine and G. Jing Construction and Building Materials 288 (2021) 123114

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