A laboratory study on the mechanical behaviour of dredged soil admixed with waste rubber tyre powder and cement

Abstract

Due to the rapid development in automobile industry, the amount of tyre wastes has been increasing every year throughout the world. An attractive method to reduce the tyre waste produced is the use of recycled waste materials for civil engineering application, and also, it may be used as a stabilizer in soils so that it may help in improving the engineering properties of soft soil. Dredge material which belongs to soft soil deposits usually has low bearing capacity, high compressibility and undergoes settlement over a long period of time, hence cannot be used as a construction or foundation material. In this study, tyre rubber powder has been used to see its influence on the mechanical properties of dredged soil. Dredged soil was collected from the catchment of Dal Lake- Nishat. Various tests like specific gravity, gradation analysis, Atterberg’s limit, compaction tests, direct shear tests, unconfined compressive strength, California bearing ratio tests have been done in order to characterize and find the shear strength parameters. This study involves performing compaction test and UCS on the soil incorporated with rubber powder (passing 425µ) at varying percentages of 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6, 9, 12 and 15%. Also, to further improve the strength, cement at a constant percentage (2%) was added to rubberized soil and the effect on UCS characteristics at various curing periods of 3 and 7 days was analysed.