Sand – rubber mixtures submitted to isotropic loading: a minimal model

Abstract

The volume of scrap tyres, an undesired urban waste, is increasing rapidly in every country. Mixing sand and rubber particles as a lightweight backfill is one of the possible alternatives to avoid stockpiling them in the environment. This paper presents a minimal model aiming to capture the evolution of the void ratio of sand-rubber mixtures undergoing an isotropic compression loading. It is based on the idea that, submitted to a pressure, the rubber chips deform and partially fill the porous space of the system, leading to a decrease of the void ratio with increasing pressure. Our simple approach is capable of reproducing experimental data for two types of sand (a rounded one and a sub-angular one) and up to mixtures composed of 50% of rubber.