Experimental Investigation of Sand–Rubber–Bitumen Mixtures as a Geotechnical Seismic Isolation Material
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 24, Issue 3
Abstract
Waste tires, which are a serious environmental threat due to the ever-increasing number of on-road vehicles, must inevitably be effectively recycled. Many researchers have posited that granular soil and crumbed waste tire mixtures can be used to reduce seismic forces in so-called geotechnical seismic isolation (GSI) systems because of the high-energy absorption capacity of sand and rubber (SR) mixtures. However, there are concerns about the stability of superstructures due to the high compressibility of SR mixtures. Asphalt mixtures have also gained new application areas outside of transportation engineering, such as in hydraulic structures and seismic isolation, due to their ductile, cohesive and viscoelastoplastic properties in recent years. In this study, sand–rubber–bitumen (SRB) mixtures were produced by adding bitumen as a binder to SR mixtures containing crumbed rubber (CR) at different ratios (1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% of the sand weight). The dynamic properties of the SRB mixtures were determined by cyclic simple shear tests, depending on vertical and cyclic stresses. We found that the SRB mixture containing 3% CR had the maximum damping ratio (D) and that an increase in the rubber content of SRB mixtures causes a decrease in the secant shear modulus (Gsec). In addition, it was observed that the Gsec increased with the vertical stress and decreased with the cyclic stress ratio. In comparing the D and Gsec values of the SRB mixtures with those of SR mixtures under similar loading conditions, it was found that the SRB mixtures had both higher D and stiffness. As a result, SRB mixtures are more suitable than SR mixtures in terms of damping, and SRB mixtures can be an alternative material for use in GSI systems.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- Al
- area of hysteresis loop (dissipated energy per cycle);
- AΔ
- area of triangle (elastic strain energy);
- Cc
- coefficient of curvature;
- Cu
- coefficient of uniformity;
- D
- damping ratio;
- Drubber
- rubber size;
- Dsand
- sand size;
- D50
- mean grain size;
- Gs
- specific gravity;
- Gsec
- secant shear modulus;
- n
- number of data points;
- γi
- shear strain of the ith point in the hysteresis loop;
- γmax
- maximum shear strain;
- γmin
- minimum shear strain;
- ρdry,max
- maximum dry density;
- ρdry,min
- mininum dry density;
- Στcyc
- total cyclic shear stress;
- σv
- vertical stress;
- τi
- shear stress of the ith point in the hysteresis loop;
- τmax
- maximum shear stress; and
- τmin
- minimum shear stress.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 24 • Issue 3 • March 2024
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 8, 2021
Accepted: Aug 21, 2023
Published online: Dec 19, 2023
Published in print: Mar 1, 2024
Discussion open until: May 19, 2024
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