Krishnamurthy et al. Res. Trends Int. J. Technol. Innov., October - December 2026, 1 (4) : 62-69
1Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India; 2Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering Pune, Pune, India
Article History
Accepted : 11 Aug 2026
Published : 05 Oct 2026
Publication Issue
Volume 1, Issue 4
October - December 2026
Page Number62–69
Construction and demolition waste disposal is a growing environmental burden in rapidly urbanising regions, while virgin aggregate quarrying faces increasing regulatory restriction. This paper evaluates recycled concrete aggregate as a partial and full replacement for natural aggregate in the granular sub-base layer of flexible pavements, characterising California Bearing Ratio, gradation stability and permeability at 0, 30, 60 and 100 percent replacement levels. The 60 percent replacement blend met all specified sub-base design criteria while reducing virgin aggregate demand substantially, whereas the 100 percent replacement blend showed a 14 percent CBR reduction falling short of the design threshold.
Keywords - recycled aggregate, pavement design, construction waste, sustainable construction, California Bearing Ratio
Rapid urban construction generates substantial volumes of concrete demolition waste, and diverting this material into pavement sub-base layers offers a lower-value but high-volume beneficial reuse pathway that can materially reduce both landfill burden and virgin aggregate extraction.
Recycled concrete aggregate sourced from a demolition processing facility was blended with natural crushed stone aggregate at replacement levels of 0, 30, 60 and 100 percent by weight, with each blend characterised for gradation, California Bearing Ratio under soaked conditions, and permeability, benchmarked against the design specification thresholds for granular sub-base material in flexible pavement construction.
The 30 and 60 percent replacement blends met all specified CBR, gradation and permeability criteria for granular sub-base use, with the 60 percent blend achieving a soaked CBR of 24 percent against a 20 percent design threshold, while the 100 percent replacement blend achieved only 17.2 percent CBR, a 14 percent shortfall against the threshold, attributed to increased fines generation from residual mortar fracturing under compaction.
Recycled concrete aggregate can substitute for a majority share of natural aggregate in pavement sub-base layers without compromising design performance, though full replacement requires either aggregate pre-treatment or blending with virgin material to meet strength criteria. Future work will assess long-term field performance under trafficked conditions.
[1] Poon C. S. and Chan D., Feasible use of recycled concrete aggregates and crushed clay brick as unbound road sub-base, Construction and Building Materials, 2006. [2] Arulrajah A. et al., Geotechnical properties of recycled construction and demolition materials, Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 2013.
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by IJEIA Editorial Office. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Anand Krishnamurthy, Pallavi Deshmukh (2026). Utilization of Recycled Construction Waste Aggregates in Sustainable Pavement Design. IJEIA, 1(4), 62-69.