Laboratory study on the compressibility of sand–rubber mixtures under one dimensional consolidation loading conditions

The continuous increase of road traffic needs in both developed and developing countries is accompanied by an important growth of highway transportation networks and consequently produce a huge amount of waste tires, and causes numerous environmental issues. On the other hand, due to their lightweight and high damping performance, several researchers are interested in the use of the soil–rubber mixtures for the attenuation of earthquake motions and ground vibrations by their capacity to absorb the external solicitations. However, several questions arise regarding the mechanical behaviour of the soil–rubber mixtures. This paper presents a thorough study on the impact of scrap tire addition on physical properties of Chlef sandy soil. A series of laboratory tests are conducted on sand–rubber mixtures with various percentage of crumb rubber: 0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% by a dry weight. Oedometric tests are carried out in order to explore the influence of rubber particles on the sand compaction and consolidation with focusing on the compressibility parameter. The experimental tests show that the increase of the percentage of crumb rubber leads to an increase of both the compression index Cc and the swelling index Cs of sand–rubber mixtures, contrariwise, a slight decrease in the preconsolidation pressure and the oedometric modulus is observed.