Emerging Technology 3

Recycled Tyre Rubber in Concrete

Used as an aggregate in concrete mixes recycled tyre rubber provides many advantages to the environment and to the construction industry.

There are more 250 million scrap tyres disposed of every year in the United States alone, this is a huge environmental factor which can be offset by the use of tyre rubber particles in concrete mixes as aggregate. Concrete has low tensile strength, low ductility, low energy absorbtion and is prone to shrinking and cracking throuhgout the curing process. Research has found that the use of tyre rubber helps improve these weaknesses.

In application the rubber would have to replace small quantities of the course and fine aggregates at a time as full replacement would hinder the concretes strength properties. Overall the rubber should not exceed 20% of the overall aggregates used in the concrete cement mix.

research conducted in laboratory conditions suggested that the use of rubber overall greatly reduced drying shrinkage, brittleness and elastic modulus, which in turn improves durability and serviceability of concrete cement.

the main setbacks at the moment in furthering its applications are the high cost in producing the rubber particles and the large variation in strengths and affects to concrete based on ration and creation methods.