ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Sustainable Design and Construction
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1598714
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable Urban Living with Adaptation Measures in Anticipation Against Climate Change Vol IIView all articles
Use of Steel Slag and Recycled Concrete in GeoBarrier System for Slope Stabilization
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Akmola, Kazakhstan
- 2The Environment and Resource Efficiency Cluster (EREC), Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan, Astana, Kazakhstan
- 3Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
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Improving slope stability against rainfall-induced slope collapses is a current area of study interest in geotechnical structure design for climate change mitigation. The GeoBarrier system (GBS) concept used recycled concrete and steel slag to avoid these kinds of failures. The present study investigated the practicability of incorporating recycled concrete and steel slag, two types of coarse-grained materials, into the GBS design. Extensive experimental investigations were conducted to determine the index properties and hydraulic characteristics, including permeability functions, soil-water characteristic curves (SWCCs), and unsaturated shear strength parameters of steel slag and recycled concrete. A finite element transient seepage analysis and limit equilibrium slope stability study were conducted to evaluate the impact of precipitation on the pore water pressure profile of the slope and its stability under rainfall circumstances, respectively. According to the findings, no breakthrough into the steel slag, a coarse-grained layer within the GBS, was observed. Based on the pore-water pressure profiles and the variation in the factor of safety (FOS) over time, steel slag and recycled concrete were found to be applicable for use as coarse-and fine-grained layers in the GBS, respectively. The incorporation of these waste materials facilitated the slope protection against infiltrated rainwater into the slope and increased the FOS for a slope with a height of 10 m and a slope angle of 70°.
Keywords: GeoBarrier system, rainfall, slope stability, Unsaturated soil, Waste materials
Received: 23 Mar 2025; Accepted: 09 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Abishev, Satyanaga, Guney, Lim and Kim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alfrendo Satyanaga, School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Akmola, Kazakhstan
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