Behavior of modified concrete based on crumb rubber: Experimental test and numerical investigation

The Crumb rubber concrete is becoming a new interesting environmental material in the last two decades, which requires research studies on the recovery of local materials using industrial waste. The present paper is devoted to investigate the behavior of concrete made only with dunes sand and an ordinary concrete modified with various weight contents of crumb rubber. The mechanical and physical proporties such us the density, the compressive strength, the relative copmaction and the tension by bending strength of a dune sand concrete and an ordinary concrete modified with differents weight percentage of rubber crumb, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% are investigated. The obtained results show that the optimal percentage of the crumb rubber is 3%. In addition, the results indicate that concrete made only with dunes sand has weaker elasticity modulus -54% approximately, and reduced compressive strength -63% compared to the modified ordinary concrete. Consequently, the ordinary concrete mix with crumb rubber and admixture incorporation has proven acceptable performances for the eventual use in the structural elements, however, the dunes sand only aggregate concrete modified by crumb rubber may limit its use in certain structural applications such us pavements borders. Finally, modified ordinary concrete and modified dunes sand are modeled by the finite element method and compared with the experimental results.