Granite By-Products for inverted pavement technique

As mentioned by Sardinia Region: ''Sustainable Development is what satisfies present's needs without shattering those of future generations, thanks to smart use of environmental resources and without waists''. This research aims to use a current resource available in high quantities in Sardinia to optimize the uses of the extracted materials and not to take just advantage of the Region. The mining activity in Sardinia, which is very important since ‘60s, during these years, has produced huge amounts of granite by-products. The ornamental use of granite is an important money source for Sardinia. Unfortunately, as the virgin material extracted must have high aesthetic qualities, many rock blocks are rejected. This research has the aim of making the most of the material stored in a quarry sites and of optimizing the uses of resource stone examined. The target is the use of granite by-products as material with high mechanical featured to be used for road pavements, from the foundation to surface. This research gives you the opportunity to make the most of regional resources, to minimize the thickness of asphalt, reducing the maintenance and realization costs. This is a good start for the Island to make money of something easy to export. Granite by-products will be used for the construction of innovative road pavement design. The Inverted Pavement Technique, studied and developed in South Africa since 1950, is going to be used for road infrastructure. In particular, I have focused the attention on the behavior of granular base layer. Thanks to this technique is actually possible to take advantage of mechanical features of base layer, creating base layers that assure high and long lasting performances with almost zero environmental costs. The Project is finalized to a sustainable design by using resources, considered as waste so far, present in the Sardinian Land and the minimal use of exhaustible and expensive row materials as asphalt layers. The increasing costs of petrol products and their limited availability leaded to find alternative solutions to flexible infrastructure everywhere in the world. Another target was to make sure that European and South African Regulation matched regarding granular aggregates. Through laboratory testing physical, chemical, and mechanical features of granite by-products were analyzed comparing to Dolerite, used in South Africa in the Inverted Pavement Technique.