Triaxial Testing on Saturated Mixtures of Sand and Granulated Rubber

Abstract

The use of granulated recycled rubber as a lightweight material in civil engineering applications has been widely growing over the past two decades. Understanding the properties of sand-rubber mixtures is essential to evaluate its performance in geotechnical applications. However, limited experimental data are available on mixtures of sand and granulated-rubber. This paper presents the results of laboratory triaxial testing on saturated mixtures of sand and granulated-rubber having varying rubber content to assess static shear strength and deformability of the mixtures. The small size granulated-rubber used in this study was more effective in reducing the unit weight of the mixture compared to larger rubber sizes. As the rubber content in the mixture increased the shear strength and stiffness of the mixture decreased, and the deformability increased. Observations from shear strength and deformation characteristics indicate that rubber dominates the sand-rubber matrix and governs the behavior at rubber contents exceeding 20%. Thus, use of mixtures of sand and granulated-rubber must be accompanied with thorough assessment of the mechanical properties of the project-specific mixtures in order to optimize the rubber content and ensure that safety and serviceability standards are met.