Effect of tire crumb and cement addition on triaxial shear behavior of sandy soils

Abstract

This paper presents a series of conventional undrained triaxial compression tests conducted to determine the effect of both tire crumbs and cement addition on Narli sand specimens. The tire crumb contents and cement contents were 3%, 7%, 15%; and 1%, 3%, 5% by dry weight of the sand specimens respectively. Specimens were prepared at about 35% relative density, cured during overnight (about 17 hours) for artificially bonding under a 100 kPa effective stress (confining pressure of 500 kPa with a back pressure of 400 kPa), and then sheared. Deviatoric stress-axial strain, pore water pressure-axial strain behavior, and Young's modulus of the specimens at various mixture ratios of tire crumb/cement/sand were measured. Test results indicated that the addition of tire crumb to sand decreases Young's modulus, deviatoric stress and brittleness, and increase pore water pressure generation. The addition of cement to sand with tire crumbs increases deviatoric stress, Young's modulus, and changes its ductile behavior to a more brittle one. The results suggest that specimen formation in the way used here could reduce the tire disposal problem in not only economically, and environmentally, but also more effectively beneficial way for some geotechnical applications.