Abstract:To address the increasing challenges posed by shield soil dreg (SSD) accumulation and the shortage of river sand, unscreened SSD is used as a replacement for river sand, and fly ash (FA) is used as supplementary cementitious material. The response surface methodology (RSM) is employed to optimize the mix proportions, with SSD replacement rates, FA replacement rates, water-to-binder ratio, and water content as factors. The evaluation metrics include slump, compressive strength, and life cycle assessment (LCA), complemented by microstructural analysis to elucidate the mechanisms of SSD in concrete. The results indicate that: (1) Under the conditions of meeting basic workability ?and mechanical properties, incorporating FA and utilizing RSM to optimize the concrete proportions can enable the successful utilization of SSD as sand in the production of concrete. Compared with ordinary concrete of similar performance, the ecological impact of SSD concrete with optimized mix proportions can be reduced by up to 11%. (2) The microscopic results indicate that the influence of SSD on compressive strength is primarily attributed to adhesion effects, ion adsorption and exchange mechanisms, internal curing effects, and its ability to alter the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) width and the effective water-to-binder ratio.