Investigation of mechanical and durability properties of cement mortar and concrete with varying replcement levels of crumb rubber as fine aggregate

• Main Author: Meherier, Md Salamah
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2016
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58307

Waste rubber materials are increasing over time with the increase in rubber tire production. These huge piles of waste are contributing to environmental degradation. As such, environment friendly substitutes are required in minimizing the adverse impact. Reuse of these materials in various alternatives are in research for the last few decades; however, major outputs in structural construction material industries are still discouraging. This research primarily focuses on the reuse of crumb rubber in both cement mortar and concrete by replacing 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% volume of sand aggregates. The experiments and analyses are done in terms of fresh properties, i.e. workability, setting time, and air content as well as hardened characteristics, i.e. compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, stress-strain behavior, unit weight, and water absorption. Moreover, durability aspects, in particular freeze-thaw resistance and rapid chloride permeability test, are examined. The experimental results confirmed low compressive strength of rubber-based mortar; however, crumb rubber up to 10% replacement performed the best with a cement to sand ratio of 1: 2.5. On the other hand, crumb rubber up to 20% replacement in concrete surpassed 35 MPa designated compressive strength, showing comparable results with the control (without any crumb rubber) specimens. Moreover, rubber-based concrete outperformed natural aggregate based concrete in terms of long-term durability performance, creating potentials of using this construction material in harsh environment. === Applied Science, Faculty of === Engineering, School of (Okanagan) === Graduate