Les retenues hydroélectriques, au même titre que les voies navigables et les ports maritimes, peuvent être soumises à une accumulation de particules solides. Si la majorité des sédiments est gérée au sein même du cours d'eau par transfert dans le lit aval, des raisons techniques ou environnementales pourraient impliquer à l'avenir une gestion à terre des déblais. Quoique considérées comme des déchets par la réglementation, les matières issues de dragage apparaissent comme une ressource noble et renouvelable. Dans une approche d'économie circulaire, certains secteurs industriels semblent en mesure d'utiliser les sédiments fins de barrage comme des matières premières alternatives, dont l'industrie des liants hydrauliques. Deux modalités de valorisation sont considérées dans cette thèse avec, d'une part, une utilisation comme matière première du cru en vue de la fabrication de clinker et, d'autre part, un emploi comme substitut pouzzolanique au clinker en ciments composés.Par l'étude de 8 sédiments prélevés sur l'ensemble du territoire français, la démarche doit aboutir à dégager des typologies de sédiments fins. Ces matériaux sont caractérisés de façon détaillée sur les aspects physico-chimiques et minéralogiques. Ces caractérisations préalables constituent une approche obligatoire pour, ensuite, tester les deux voies de valorisation matière et vérifier l'adéquation des matériaux issus de dragage.L'emploi de sédiments dans le cru, en substitution aux ressources argileuses traditionnellement utilisées, est expérimenté en laboratoire. Des clinkers maximisant le taux d'incorporation de sédiments fins, entre 25 et 35 % selon le sédiment, sont synthétisés. Les clinkers ainsi produits présentent des particularités microstructurales qu'il faut parfois atténuer par une complémentation en argile de carrière. En somme, il est montré que, quel que soit le sédiment, une valorisation dans le cru semble envisageable tout en anticipant les propriétés du clinker in fine. En démonstration, un ciment CEM I de classe 52,5 N est fabriqué avec un taux d'incorporation de sédiment de 11,4 %.Sur le plan du développement de la réactivité pouzzolanique, un suivi de l'évolution des propriétés physiques et minéralogiques des sédiments avec la température est effectué. En parallèle de ces caractérisations, une évaluation de la réactivité pouzzolanique est conduite avec des essais chimiques et physiques par substitution partielle de ciment Portland par des sédiments calcinés. Cela conduit à déterminer, s'il y a lieu, un optimum de calcination. Les teneurs en kaolinite, de l'ordre de 10 % de certains échantillons étudiés permettent le développement d'une activité pouzzolanique qui peut être modérée à élevée (comparable à une cendre volante). Néanmoins, pour l'ensemble des sédiments riches en calcite et dont le cortège argileux ne présente que des argiles de type illite et chlorite, l'activation est faible ou nulle. / Hydroelectric dams, as well as waterways and marine harbours, can be subject to solid particles accumulation. Although sediment is mainly managed within the watercourse by a transfer into the downstream river bed, technical or environmental reasons might imply an on-land management in the future. Albeit sediments should be considered as waste according to regulations, dredged materials appear as valuable and renewable resources. In a circular economy approach, some industrial sectors could beneficially reuse fine-grained dam sediment as alternative raw materials, including hydraulic binders industry. Then, two ways of reusing are considered in this PhD thesis with on one hand, a valorization as raw material in the clinker meal and, on the other hand, as pozzolanic substitute to clinker in blended cements.Studying 8 different sediments that were sampled on the French territory, the approach aims to encompass various contexts and define some typologies. The materials are characterized in detail on physico-chemical and mineralogical aspects. These preliminary characterisations are necessary in order to test both the beneficial reuse opportunities and check the suitability of dredged sediments.The beneficial reuse of sediment in the clinker raw meal as replacement of traditional clay resources is experimented at the lab scale. Clinkers that maximize the fine-grained sediment content, between 25 and 35 % according to the sediment, are synthetized. These clinkers exhibit some special microstructural features that can be corrected by a clay addition as a third compound. Thus, it is shown that any sediment can be reused in the raw meal and that clinker characteristics can be anticipated and adjusted. As a demonstration, a CEM I 52.5 N cement was obtained incorporating 11.4 % of sediment in the raw meal.Concerning pozzolanic reactivity development, physical and mineralogical sediment characteristics are followed according to the calcination temperature. In parallel, pozzolanic reactivity is assessed with both chemical and physical tests, with a partial substitution of Portland cement by calcined sediments in cement pastes, in order to determine an optimum calcination temperature. Kaolinite contents around 10 % for some of the studied samples lead to a moderate to high pozzolanic reactivity, that can be comparable to fly ash. However, for all the sediments that contain calcite and only illite and chlorite clays, activation is low or null.

In this thesis, characterization of two class F fly ashes (FA) from &Ccedil / atalagzi and Sug&ouml / z&uuml / thermal power plants were carried out and their utilization potentials in three different fields were examined. Characterization of sintered samples and determination of their utilization potentials in ceramic industry is the first research area in this thesis. For this purpose, the class F fly ash samples were first pressed into cylindrical specimen without the addition of any organic binders or inorganic additives, and then sintered to form ceramic materials. Effects of sintering temperature and time on sintering characteristics were investigated. In the experiments, the cylindrical specimens were first preheated to 300oC for 1 h to remove moisture and any other gases. The specimens were then fired at the temperatures of 1000oC, 1050oC, 1100oC and 1150oC for the sintering times of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 hours. Heating rate of 10oC/min was kept constant throughout the experiments. Quality of sintered samples was evaluated in terms of ceramic specifications such as density, water absorption, porosity, shrinkage and splitting tensile strength. In addition, mineralogical and microstructural changes during sintering were determined with X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses. According to literature data, better microstructure, the highest density and strength with the lowest porosity, water absorption and shrinkage values are the indications of the optimum sintering conditions. Based on these specifications, Sug&ouml / z&uuml / fly ash gave better results compared to &Ccedil / atalagzi fly ash, and the optimum conditions were achieved at the sintering temperature of 1150oC for the sintering time of 1.5 hours for both samples. Pozzolanic reactivity of the fly ashes and their utilization potentials in civil engineering applications were also examined in detail during this study. For this purpose, &Ccedil / atalagzi (CFA) and Sug&ouml / z&uuml / (SFA) fly ashes were first subjected to a specific hydraulic classification process developed at CAER (University of Kentucky, Center for Applied Energy Research) to recover ultrafine fly ash particles. The overflow products with average particle sizes of 5.2 &mu / m for CFA and 4.4 &mu / m for SFA were separated from the respective as-received samples with average particle sizes of 39 &mu / m and 21 &mu / m. After the classification stage, the pozzolanic activities of these ultrafine fly ash fractions (UFA) and as-received samples were examined by preparing a number of mortar (mixture of Portland cement (PC), FA or UFA as partial cement replacement, sand and water) and paste (mixture of PC, FA or UFA as partial cement replacement and water) specimens. Control samples containing only PC were also prepared and tested through the experiments for the comparison of the results. In the mortar experiments, three different PC replacement ratios by FA and UFA (10%, 20% and 30%) were used to examine the effects of FA and UFA samples on the fresh and hardened mortar properties such as water requirement, compressive strength, drying shrinkage and water expansion. These mortar tests indicated that ultrafine fractions of &Ccedil / atalagzi (CUFA) and Sug&ouml / z&uuml / (SUFA) fly ashes provided more than 10% reduction in water demand compared to the control sample for 30% PC replacement. The mortar cubes containing CUFA and SUFA samples exhibited also higher strength development rates after 14 days compared to the ones with as-received samples and PC only. At the end of the curing age of 112 days, both CUFA and SUFA provided more than 40% increase in compressive strength compared to the control sample for the PC replacement ratios higher than 20%. As a comparison, SUFA gave better results than CUFA in both water demand and compressive strength tests. The mortar bars prepared with the both FA and UFA samples exhibited very low shrinkage and expansion values. These values decreased generally with increasing PC replacement ratio especially after 14 days. In the paste experiments, thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) of the paste specimens prepared by using only with 20% PC replacement were carried out to determine pozzolanic reactivity of the samples. The difference between the remaining Ca(OH)2 (portlandite) contents in the paste specimens containing the fly ashes and the reference PC paste was used as a measure of pozzolanic reactivity. After 112 days, 68.56% and 62.68% Ca(OH)2 content of PC only pastes were obtained with the pastes containing CUFA and SUFA samples, respectively, corresponding to 11% and 13% more Ca(OH)2 consumptions in reference to the respective as-received samples. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses were also performed for comparison of main portlandite peak intensities in the paste specimens containing FA or UFA with those in the PC only paste during cement hydration. According to these XRD analyses, portlandite content in PC/UFA pastes decreased significantly after 14 days compared to the PC only paste. All of these tests and analyses showed that a highly reactive lower cost pozzolan with very fine particle size and higher surface area compared to regular fly ash pozzolans can be produced from both &Ccedil / atalagzi and Sug&ouml / z&uuml / fly ashes using a relatively simple hydraulic classification technology. Cenosphere recovery potentials from &Ccedil / atalagzi and Sug&ouml / z&uuml / fly ashes were also studied in this thesis. Determination of cenosphere content was done under optical microscope by particle counting on the basis of point and area. Based on the point-counting data, CFA and SFA samples originally contain 11.30% and 4.50% cenospheres, respectively. Variations of cenosphere contents in the fly ash samples were examined by using float-sink, screening and air classification tests. The results pointed out that cenosphere contents decreased with decreasing size and increasing density for both samples. According to the float-sink tests, &Ccedil / atalagzi fly ash has much more floating products and more cenospheres than Sug&ouml / z&uuml / fly ash for the same density interval. Based on the air classification results, cenospheres were concentrated in the underflow products, and cenosphere contents increased with increasing air pressure and decreasing motor speed for both samples. The most efficient cenosphere separation technique among the examined methods was screening. Cenosphere contents of CFA and SFA increased to 21.65% and 11.83%, respectively by only using simple screening through 38 &mu / m.