Behavior of rubberized reinforced concrete beams under impact loading: Fid-Bau Portal

Behavior of rubberized reinforced concrete beams under impact loading

AL-Hajjar, Karrar R. M. / AL-Khafaji, Ali G. A.

The global creation of discarded tires currently outnumbers its consumption in terms of recycling and reuse. As a result, vast quantities of poisonous rubber waste have accumulated, posing health and safety problems. It was suggested that waste tire rubber could be used to build the concrete structure. The impact behavior of rubberized concrete beams is investigated experimentally in this paper. This study aims to predict the maximum mid-span displacement and the maximum impact load of the rubberized concrete beams. An instrumented drop-weight testing machine was used to conduct the impact tests. In the experimental work, two main factors were studied. The first is the volumetric replacement ratio of rubber, and the second is the height of falling mass. Four reinforced concrete beams with varied rubber contents (0% 15, 25, and 35%) were tested under impact load from heights 1.5 m, 2.0 m, and 2.4 m. The results showed that the use of rubberized concrete reduces the maximum impact force by (2.93, 13.16, and 17.53%) at the rubber contents (15, 25, and 35%), respectively, at the height of 2.4m compared to the zero-rubber content. The beams with replacement ratios of 15% and 25% showed a decrease in displacement by 8.44% and 6.26%, respectively, at the mass drop height of 2.4 m, while the displacement increased by 17.26% for the beam with 35% rubber content for the same height compared to the reference beam.