Effect of Replacement of Sand by Waste Fine Crumb Rubber on Concrete Beam Subject to Impact Load: Experiment and Simulation

Abstract

In this study, the effect of partial replacement of sand by waste fine crumb rubber on the performance of hybrid structure concrete beam (double layer beam with rubberized top and normal bottom) under impact loading were investigated experimentally and numerically. Rubberized concrete materials were prepared by partial substitution (2.5%, 5% and 7.5%replacements by volume) of sand by waste fine crumb rubber of particle size 0.4–0.8 mm. Two types of specimens (size 100 mm ×100 mm × 500mm) namely, plain concrete and hybrid concrete were loaded to failure in a drop-weight impact machine by subjecting to 30 N weights from a height of 400mm, and similar specimens were used for the static load test. The dynamic beam behavior was analyzed numerically using the finite-element method (FEM) based LUSAS V.14 software.

In general, the results reveal that the impact bending load in the hybrid beam increases with increase in the percentage of sand replacement by fine crumb rubber, while the static peak bending load always decreases.

Keywords: Hybrid; Impact behavior; Finite element analysis (FEA); Mechanical testing.