A potential damage mechanism of rubberized cement under freeze-thaw cycle

Abstract

Abstract The recycling of scrap tires has attracted attention under the increasingly severe environmental pressures. Rubberized cement, a hardened cement paste with part of the aggregate replaced by rubber particles, shows non-brittle damage differing from the normal concrete. Therefore, there have been mounting interests in the durability of rubberized cement, especially the property against the freeze-thaw cycles. The changed behavior of rubberized cement may be attributed to the effect of rubber particles packing of cement mortar. However, very little progress has been made in exploring the failure mechanisms due to the complex interactions among the material components. The objective of this study is to investigate the damage mechanism of treated cement mortar with rubber particles in terms of freeze-thaw procedure. The cement mortar specimens were divided into two main components: cement paste and rubber particle, which are represented by two parameters: Relative Skeleton Strength (RSS) & Compressive Ratio (CR) respectively. The analysis is based on the Canonical correlation method and Spearman correlation method. The statistical analysis reveals that CR has a high correlation with the residual strength of the specimens after the freeze-thaw cycle.