Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2011MD247B

Environmental Suitability of Fly Ash Use in Highway Structural Fills (Graduate Fellowship)

Institute: Maryland
Year Established: 2011 Start Date: 2011-03-01 End Date: 2012-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $6,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $14,988

Principal Investigators: Kaye Brubaker, Ahmet Aydilek

Project Summary: Coal-fired power industry is the largest electricity supplier in the United States and the increase in energy demand and a corresponding increase in the use of coal to generate electricity have resulted in the generation of larger amounts of fly ash every year. Large amounts of these fly ashes are disposed in the landfills and their beneficial use will promote the sustainable efforts in green highway construction while decreasing the potential for contamination of Chesapeake Bay with inorganic chemicals. A study will be conducted to evaluate the groundwater and surface water impacts of leaching of trace metals from fly ash amended embankment constructions and finding a correlation between the laboratory leach tests and numerically simulated concentration profiles. These objectives will be met by a combination of running batch water leach tests, and two computer models WISCLEACH and MIKE – SHE.