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Use of Innovative Sustainable and Durable Materials in Concrete Pavements

Concrete is the most widely used manufactured material in existence. The key ingredient of concrete is the cement that binds various concrete ingredients together to form hardened concrete. The manufacturing of Portland cement, the most commonly used cementitious material worldwide, is responsible for emitting 5 to 8% of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) every year. To address this concern, the concrete industry is exploring opportunities to use innovative, low-carbon cementitious materials in concrete to reduce embodied (cradle-to-gate) CO₂ emissions and move toward net-zero carbon emission construction. In 2024, the National Road Research Alliance (NRRA) constructed 8 lower-carbon-content-concrete pavement test cells at the MnROAD facility to expand on earlier research and evaluate the large-scale constructability, sustainability, and resiliency of various alternative cementitious and pozzolanic materials. The main goal of the new project is to investigate how the various innovative and sustainable materials used in these cells affect their early life performance in Minnesota’s harsh climate conditions. In order to achieve the project goals, the research team will analyze the fresh and hardened concrete test results, evaluate the constructability of the alternative cementitious materials in large-scale constructions such as pavement, analyze the annual pavement performance for the first three years after the construction and develop a framework for identifying measures that could be used to evaluate new materials such that agency specifications can be created or revised.