INTERACTION BETWEEN TIRE SHREDS, RUBBER-SAND AND GEOSYNTHETICS

Waste tires can be shredded (tire shreds) and re-used as fill material . The fill material may be comprised solely of tire shreds or mixed wi th sand (rubber-sand). If geosynthetics are to be used with fills cont aining tire shreds, it is necessary to understand the physical interac tion between tire shreds, or rubber-sand, and the geosynthetic of inte rest. A laboratory testing program consisting of direct shear tests, i nterface direct shear tests, and geosynthetic pullout tests was conduc ted to determine the interaction properties of tire shreds and rubber- sand fills with three different flexible geogrids and a woven geotexti le. Direct shear and interface direct shear tests were conducted using a large direct shear box with dimensions of 300 mm by 300 mm and a to tal depth of 230 mm. Pullout tests were carried out in a large pullout box with dimensions of 1.2 m in length by 0.9 m in width and a total depth of 0.5 m. The details of the testing program, the test results, and conclusions based on the test results are presented in this paper.