Influence of Adding Tire Chips on the Mechanical Behavior of Calcareous Sands

Scrap Tire disposal has been a critical environmental problem in many urban cities due to the enormous boost in the number of vehicles. This problem can be somehow mitigated by finding applications for these unusable materials in engineering. For instance, Scrap Tire can be executed as lightweight materials for backfill in geotechnical engineering projects. The Scrap Tire reuse in Sand-Tire Mixtures can effectively address growing environmental concerns and, at the same time, provide solutions for geotechnical problems associated with the low shear strength of the soil which fundamentally is determined as the main characteristics of Calcareous (or Carbonate) soils. In order to deeply understand the mechanical behavior of Sand-Tire Mixtures, a series of Consolidated Drained Triaxial Test were conducted in this study employing specimens with two different relative densities (i.e. 30% and 60%) under the specific confining pressures (i.e.100, 350, and 600 kN/m2). The results revealed that by adding 10% Scrap Tire into the Sand-Tire Mixtures, the loose specimen’s shear strength increases from 6 to 14% in comparison to pure sand. Furthermore, the particle breakage factor of the mixtures is considerably less than that of pure specimens.