Strength and deformation characteristics of shredded rubber tire – sand mixtures

Abstract

The volume of scrap tires, an undesired urban waste, is increasing every year. One of the possible alternatives for this waste is to use shredded tires alone or mixed with soil as a lightweight backfill. This paper presents the results of triaxial tests on compacted shredded rubber tire – sand mixtures. The tests were carried out with different mixing ratios of shredded rubber tires and sand. With an increasing proportion of sand in the mixture, the density, unit weight, and shear strength of the mixture increased, but the compressibility decreased. The dilatancy characteristics of shredded rubber tires mixed sand were relatively similar to a cohesionless material and can be explained within a critical state framework. A proposed constitutive model broadly captures the strength and deformation characteristics of a shredded rubber tire – sand mixture at different mixing ratios.Key words: shredded rubber tires, triaxial testing, constitutive model.