Performance of concrete containing recycled rubber

Abstract

Recycling of materials has become a major interest for engineers as a part of their collective efforts in finding and developing environmentally friendly solutions towards a more sustainable future. As a result of the rapid growth in the vehicles industry, consistently a large number of scrap tyres are disposed of, buried, and discarded each year which lead to major environmental risks. One of the promising solutions is utilizing the waste rubber tires in civil engineering applications. For instance, the recycled rubber can partially substitute the natural aggregate in conventional concrete resulting in a type of concrete called rubberized concrete or crumb rubber concrete. This solution can be considered a one step forward towards sustainable construction as it reduces the amount of rubber entering landfills and conserves the natural resources. The primary target of this study is to assess the effect of inclusion of waste rubber in high strength concrete as partial replacement of fine aggregate by volume through experimentally investigating the mechanical properties and the impact resistance of the produced rubberized concrete. Four different mixes were produced in which crumb rubber partially replaced the fine aggregate by 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% of volume. Slump, compressive strength, tensile strength, density, water absorption, and finally the impact resistance were evaluated. Recommendations for