Performance of self-compacting rubberized concrete

Abstract

Used tyre rubber wastes present a serious environmental problem of pollution and storage. The recycling of this waste in the industry of construction could be an appropriate solution to produce an eco-concrete and could contribute to the improvement of some of its properties. This paper aims to study the possibility of using tyre rubber waste as fine aggregate replacement in self-compacting concrete (SCC). Fines rubber particles of 0-2 mm of waste tyres were added SCC mixtures as a partial substitution of the total volume of sand at different percentages (5, 10, 15, 20 and 30%). The influence of fines rubber of used tyres on fresh and hardened properties of the SCC was investigated. The fresh properties of SCC were performed by using slump-flow, T50 flow time, L-box, V-funnel and segregation resistance tests. Characteristics of the hardened state were obtained by compressive strength and thermal conductivity. The experimental results showed that the inclusion of fines rubber in SCC decreases the workability, reduced its passing capacity and increases the possibility of blocking. A decrease in compressive strength is observed with the increase in rubber content. On the other hand, the incorporation of the rubber fines aggregates enhances in a remarkably way the thermal conductivity.