Reuse of EPB mucking for concrete production: A laboratory test campaign

This paper presents a comparative test campaign between concrete produced with clean aggregate and aggregate treated with surfactants. The latter condition simulates the effect of earth pressure balance (EPB)-tunnel boring machine (TBM) on aggregates during the excavation and their successive reuse for concrete production. Uniaxial compressive strength, the dynamic elastic moduli, and the specific weight were measured and compared. The results show that the presence of surfactants, introduced in the mix by the aggregates, reduces significantly the compressive strength (up to 41 %), the elastic moduli (up to 25 %), and the specific weight (up to 7 %).