Experimental investigation on degradation processes in concrete with recycled-tire rubber aggregates

This laboratory study deals with a comprehensive and extensive investigation on modified concrete specimens using rubber particles obtained from waste tires. Different types of mix have been studied with different percentage of rubber particles used as a partial or total substitute to natural aggregates by using and comparing mixtures with various additions and surface treatments. Test results show that the rubcrete mix has some appealing characteristics such as a low specific weight but worsen compressive strength in line with previous studies. However, the most important findings of this research also reveal that a decline of mechanical performance have been observed in the rubcrete samples at 60 days. Also cracking and delaminations phenomena occured on the test specimens. This paper presents some of these new results and start investigating the causes of the observed time-dependent degradation.