Representatives of FAI “ROSDORNII” and the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) exchanged experience in the field of applying metallurgical slag in road construction in Russia and India and discussed prospects for cooperation. The meeting took place on September 7 via video conference.
ROSDORNII was represented by the Deputy Director of the Department of Scientific and Technical Development and Standardization Vladimir Maryev, the Director of the Industry Education Development Department Alexey Ignatiev, the Deputy Head of the Information Support Section Alexander Nesvetailov, and the Leading Specialist of the Information Support Section Natalia Blinova.
On behalf of the Central Road Research Institute (India), the session was attended by the Director of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of the Central Road Research Institute, Manoranjan Parida, and the Principal Scientist, Satish Pandey.
According to Mr. Pandey, the annual production of steel slag in India is currently 19.5 million tons. By 2030, this figure is expected to increase to 300 million tons.
“The disposal of steel slag is an important challenge for the Indian steel industry, as otherwise it needs to be disposed of in landfills or stored on site,” said Satish Pandey. “Steel slag is a waste product that poses a threat to the environment. For this reason, the Central Research Institute of India has developed a technology to process it into high-quality aggregate suitable for application in road construction.”
According to the National Highway Development Program of India, the demand for aggregates for road construction is 1.1 billion tons per year, which could increase to 2.2 billion tons by 2025. The technology proposed by CRRI will solve the problem of recycling steel slag and reduce the need for natural aggregate.
Vladimir Maryev thanked his colleagues for the interesting report and shared his experience of using metallurgical blast furnace slag at road construction sites in the Russian Federation: “Every year, 25 million tons of different types of slag are generated by metallurgical plants in our country. It can be used when constructing self-consolidating road pavement bases, strengthening soil, backfilling dirt roads, or treating road surfaces with solid deicing reagents.”
The expert said that road bases made of metallurgical slag mixes maintain the pavement surface evenness for a longer period, with reduced thickness and labor costs when constructing an equal-strength base of discrete materials or materials treated with mineral or organic binders.
Speaking of potential partners that may be of interest to the Indian side, Vladimir Maryev named research centers working with such holdings as NLMK, Severstal, Evraz and some others, where projects for processing slag into final products, applicable for use in all pavement layers, have already been implemented. Over the past 10 years in Russia, slag has been used in the construction, for example, of such large highways as the M-4 Don, the M-12 Vostok, and the Central Ring Road.
Experts from ROSDORNII and the Central Road Research Institute expressed great interest in the exchange of documents and research materials on the use of metallurgical slags in road construction in Russia and India and intend to continue cooperation and discussion of this topic at the following video conferences.