Enhancing the flexural load capacity of the reinforced concrete simply supported slabs using damaged tires strips (DTS)

Abstract

Damaged tires or ended-life tires represent a difficult problem due to their ability to sustain for a long time which are not able to be dissolved easily. Present study focuses on the ability of using the damaged tires strips (DTS) in the field of structural engineering as an innovative reinforcing material used additionally with the main reinforcement. The adopted technique in the present work represents a clean solution to reuse and recycle DTS to increase the ultimate flexural capacity of the reinforced concrete one-way and two-way slabs used in structural systems satisfying clean environment and economic considerations. The tests were conducted upon eight specimens of reinforced concrete one-way slabs (RCOWS) and two specimens of reinforced concrete two-way slabs (RCTWS) reinforced by the DTS as an additional reinforcement. Experimentally obtained results exhibited enhancement for the ultimate flexural load capacity of the RCOWS and RCTWS models reinforced by the DTS in the range of 16–80 and 14.28% respectively, compared to the original reference specimens.