Honne B Nagaraj1, Ashwin M. Joshi2, and Niranjan A. Karamadi3
1) Professor of Civil Engineering, B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore, India
e-mail: drhbn.civ@bmsce.ac.in
2) Research Scholar, Dept. of Civil Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, India
e-mail: ashwinmjoshi@gmail.com
3) Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, India
e-mail: karamadiniranjan@gmail.com
Keywords: Crumb rubber, Soil blocks, Stabilization, Sustainability, Admixtures.
Abstract. With increased living standards of people, use of motorised vehicles is ever increasing, thereby generating waste tyres after their useful life. Disposal of these waste tyres has become a major problem, as they are non-biodegradable. Disposal by burning consumes huge energy and consequent serious air pollution. On the other hand, disposal of waste tyres by dumping when there are no options for reuse, needs large area of vacant land, which is not a sustainable option. Reported research has shown that waste tyre rubber can be used in concrete as filler material and with bitumen for improving its properties, thereby finding their utility to some extent. However, waste tyres are still available in huge quantity lying as a waste in urban centres needing various other applications of reuse. To date, no attempt has been reported to utilise crumb rubber tyre waste in Compressed Stabilized Earth Blocks (CSEBs). Utilization of crumb rubber tyre waste, even though in small quantity in preparation of CSEBs would be finding a good application in the construction industry. Preliminary attempts made through this study to utilize crumb rubber in making blocks with varying amounts of crumb rubber tyre waste (1 % to 3%), cement and lime (total quantity of admixtures being 8 %) have shown that at 6 months of ageing the wet compressive0strength of blocks are more than 5.0 MPa at 6 months0of ageing and also found be durable. This encourages a more detailed study for large-scale utilization of waste crumb rubber in construction industry, and thereby promotes sustainability.