Investigations of the Effect of High Percentage of Waste Fine Crumb Rubber on Rubberized Concrete Beam Subject to Impact Load

Abstract

In this study, rubberized concrete samples were prepared by substitution (10%, 20% and 30% replacements by volume) of sand by waste fine crumb rubber, and tested under impact three-point bending load, as well as static load. Three types of specimens (size 1000 mm ×100 mm × 500mm) namely, plain concrete and rubberized concrete were loaded to failure in a drop-weight impact machine by subjecting to 30 N weight from a height of 400mm, and another three similar specimens  were used for  the static load test. In both the tests, the load-displacement of each specimen was investigated. The dynamic beam behaviour 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: Impact behavior; Finite element analysis (FEA); Mechanical testing.