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Abstract
This paper presents reinforcing effects of the newly devised ‘Tirecell’, made from treads of waste tires, in sand. Parametric studies of
the number of connection bolts between Tirecells, relative density of sand, embedded depth, the number of reinforced layers, and the
width of Tirecell were performed by using plate load tests. The number of connection bolts used was enough to maintain the given
pressure. Both the bearing capacity increased and the settlement reduction was the highest at the lowest density of sand, and the
reinforcing effect of sand was obtained when the embedded depth was within 1.0B, where B is the loading width.
Higher bearing capacity was achieved by adding the Tirecell-reinforcement layers within 1.0B. Especially, the bearing capacity
increased remarkably at one layer of the reinforcement, and the degree of increase was small from one-layer reinforcement to two layers.
The Tirecell width that did not change the bearing capacity was smaller than that of geocell because of the high stiffness of the Tirecell.
The reinforcing effect of Tirecell, in general, was more prominent than that of a commercial geocell.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0266-1144/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.geotexmem.2006.10.004
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Y.W. Yoon et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 26 (2008) 100–107 101
2.2. Sand
Fig. 2. Plane figures of (a) cell unit by a tire, (b) Tirecell, and (c) photo of
Fig. 1. Formation of Tirecell. Tirecell.
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102 Y.W. Yoon et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 26 (2008) 100–107
Table 1 500
Properties of Tirecell
Dr = 55%
A unit of Tirecell dimension (mm) (Fig. 2a) 190 (b1) 730 400
(L) 135 (H)
(σ1 - σ 3)(kN/m2 )
Tirecell dimension (mm) (Fig. 2b) 1460 (b2) 1520
(L) 135 (H) 300
Volume of solid tire material of a unit Tirecell 2,721,600
(mm3) (Fig. 2a)
200
1 volume (mm3) Tirecell in 1,300,000 σ 3 = 30kN /m2
2 volume (mm3) Fig. 2b 4,600,000 σ 3 = 60kN/m2
3 volume (mm3) 100
5,800,000 σ 3 = 120kN/m2
Tensile strength of 1 bolt 2.48
connection (kN) 2 bolts 5.70 0
3 bolts 7.47 0 5 10 15 20
15
100 10
90
(%)
ε v (%
80 5
Percent finer (%)
70
60 0
50
40 -5
0 5 10 15 20
30
20 ε a (%)
10
Fig. 4. Typical triaxial behavior for medium dense Incheon sand
0
(Dr ¼ 55%).
0.01 0.1 1 10
Particle diameter (mm)
The chamber was placed under a loading frame and was
Fig. 3. Particle size distribution curve. filled with sand up to the depth of 1.2 m. Hydraulic
cylinder, dial gages, and a measuring system were involved
in the test (Fig. 5). The chamber had rigid boundaries, and
Table 2 its size was determined by finite element analysis, which
Physical properties of sand sample checked the boundary influence. No boundary influence
was confirmed from the pilot-plate load tests preceding the
Coefficient of uniformity, Cu 2.81
Coefficient of concavity, Cc 1.00
main tests.
Effective size, D10 (mm) 0.19
Maximum dry unit weight (kN/m3) 15.89 3.2. Sample preparation
Minimum dry unit weight (kN/m3) 13.24
Specific gravity, Gs 2.64
Sand was compacted by the tamping technique applying
Friction angle, f Dr ¼ 40% 34.6 the undercompaction concept (Ladd, 1978). This method
Dr ¼ 55% 35.4 can consistently produce layers with almost the same
Dr ¼ 70% 36.5
density. The sand samples with relative densities of 40%,
Ratio of friction angle, d/f E0.90 55% and 70% were prepared to investigate the effect of soil
improvement by Tirecell. For more uniform density,
the wooden frame divided into nine cells was used, and
internal friction angle (f) of the sand were about 0.9–1.0, the height of the sand sample was divided into five levels.
depending upon the surface condition of tire tread, for The weight of the sand in each section was measured and
both the outside and inside of the tire treads. poured carefully into every square cell of the wooden frame.
After the frame was removed, tamping was conducted with
a tamper with 250 mm 250 mm square plate.
3. Experimental program
3.3. Testing program
3.1. Test chamber
A series of plate load tests for Tirecell-reinforced sands
The plate load tests for this research were carried out in a were performed to study the reinforcing effect of Tirecell
test chamber of 2.0 m width, 2.0 m length, and 1.5 m height. with number of connection bolts between Tirecell, relative
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Y.W. Yoon et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 26 (2008) 100–107 103
u
135
1500
Δz
135
1200 Δz
135
2.2 0.8
qu (kN/m2) 137.3 235.4 441.3
0.7
2.0
BCR of Geocell 0.6
BCR
SRF
1.8 (Guido and
Christou,1988) 0.5
1.6 SRF of Geocell
Load (kN/m2 ) (Guido and 0.4
1.4 Christou,1988)
10 100 1000 0.3
0 1.2 0.2
5 1.0 0.1
10 0.8 0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5
15
u/B
Settlement (mm)
20
Fig. 7. Variation of BCR and SRF with embedded depth of reinfo-
25 rcement.
30
35
BCR and SRF became similar with increasing embedded
40 Unreinforced, Dr = 70%
Unreinforced, Dr =55%
depth, thus, decreasing reinforcement effect.
45
Unreinforced, Dr= 40%
50 4.3. Variation of bearing capacity with connection strength
Fig. 6. Load-settlement curves for Incheon sands. The Tirecell units were connected by high-strength
plastic bolts. For two cases of connections using 1 bolt
and 3 bolts, respectively, plate load tests were conducted
the sand in this research is poorly graded with Cu ¼ 2.81 to observe the variations of bearing capacities and
and Cc ¼ 1.0. settlements. Plate load tests were performed under the
The test condition of geocell was N ¼ 2, Dz/B ¼ 0.25, conditions of u/B ¼ 0.2, b/B ¼ 4.17, Dr ¼ 40%, N ¼ 1. As
b/B ¼ 2, Dr ¼ 55% and that of Tirecell was N ¼ 1, shown in Fig. 8, the bearing capacity difference between 1
b/B ¼ 4.17, Dr ¼ 55%. Main differences between test bolt and 3 bolts for connection of Tirecell units is
conditions were the number of reinforced layers, N, and negligible. Therefore, for all other tests, Tirecell units were
the ratio of Tirecell width to plate width, b/B. However, connected by using 1 bolt.
Tirecell widths could be considered the same because both
widths were beyond the boundary effect range. The 4.4. Width of Tirecell
variation of bearing capacities with b/B is discussed in
the following section. The comparison of the test results For different sizes of Tirecell, plate load tests were
showed the reinforcing effects by Tirecell (h ¼ 135 mm) conducted as shown in Fig. 9 to determine the maximum
and was meaningful because both BCR and SRF are width ratio that would have no influence on the size of the
normalized values. Tirecell, where width ratio is defined by the ratio of the
As shown in Fig. 7, the BCR values of Tirecell are higher Tirecell width (b) to load plate width (B). Table 5 and
than those of geocell, especially, at lower normalized Fig. 9 show the variation of BCR and SRF with Tirecell
embedded depth (u/B) in spite of one-layer reinforcement. width b/B. As b/B increased, the BCR increased until it
The higher BCR of Tirecell at shallow depth is probably reached the maximum value and the SRF decreased until it
due to the good condition of the tire treads. According to reached the minimum value, both at b/B value of more
Seo (2003), the condition of waste tire, i.e. the thickness of than about 2.0. This result was different from those at
the tread, affects the bearing capacities. The variation of b/B ¼ 2.5 of Guido and Christou (1988) in case of geocell
stiffness with the degree of wearing can be studied further and at b/BE6 of Fragaszy and Lawton (1984) for
in the future. The settlement reductions are higher (i.e. low reinforcing strips. High BCR at smaller b/B ratio may
SRF values) at shallow depth of the embedment and the come from the stiffness of the Tirecell. The stiffness of
degree of settlement reduction is higher with Tirecell waste tire change with the degree of wearing down of the
reinforcement than with geocell. Therefore, from the tire treads. Therefore, the results may have been different
viewpoint of bearing capacities, Tirecell might be useful because of the stiffness of the reinforcement material. The
as recycling material for soil reinforcement, if there is no higher the stiffness of reinforcement material, the smaller
environment problem by inclusion of tires into soil. The the size of the reinforcement is necessary. The result
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Y.W. Yoon et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 26 (2008) 100–107 105
20 of Tirecell-reinforced sand.
Fig. 10 also shows the variation of SRF with different
25 densities. For single-layer reinforcement, settlement re-
30 duces by as much as 81% (SRF ¼ 0.19) at relative density
40%, whereas it reduces by as much as 67% (SRF ¼ 0.33)
35
at 70% relative density. Reinforcement of one layer
40 Number of bolts =3
reduces the settlement remarkably at loose sand than at
Number of bolt = 1
45 dense sand. Settlement reduction effect is higher at lower
Unreinforced
densities. At higher density, the reinforcement layer has less
50
effect on settlement reduction because soil stiffness itself is
Fig. 8. Variation of load-bearing capacities with the number of
enough to support the imposed load. Therefore, as in the
connection bolts (Dr ¼ 40%, u/B ¼ 0.2). case of commercial geosynthetics, such as geogrid, geotex-
tile and geocell, benefits can also be obtained from the
inclusion of Tirecell using treads only. The inclusion of
Load (kN /m2) waste tires seems to increase the stiffness of the sand
10 100 1000
remarkably.
0
20
25
Table 6
30 BCR and SRF for different densities (u/B ¼ 0.2, N ¼ 1)
35 b/B = 4.17 Dr (%) qr (kN/m2) BCR SRF
40 b /B = 2.17
b/B = 1.09 40 402.09 2.93 0.19
45 55 637.46 2.71 0.21
Unreinforced
70 784.56 1.78 0.33
50
SRF
1.8 0.1
indicated that Tirecell width ratio of 4.17 in this research,
which is the natural result of connection of small truck 1.6 0.0
30 40 50 60 70 80
tires, does not affect the size of the Tirecell because the
Relative Density, Dr (%)
width ratio was larger than the minimum value. Also the
direction of the Tirecell shows almost no difference. The Fig. 10. Variation of BCR and SRF with relative density (u/B ¼ 0.2,
reason is probably due to the cover thickness of soil. N ¼ 1).
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results are listed in Table 7. As the depth of the reinforced Tirecell. These two figures show that the increases in the
layer by Tirecell decreases, BCR increases and SRF bearing capacity and decreases in the settlement due to
decreases. These phenomena indicate that the bearing additional layers of Tirecell-reinforcement and the BCRs
capacity increases as the settlement decreases. Guido and begin to converge at a certain layer depending on the
Christou (1988) and Omar et al. (1993) gave similar results. interval of reinforcement. When more than two layers of
At u/B of about 1.0, the reinforced layers had no influence Tirecell were used, the upper and the lower layers were lain
on the improvement of bearing capacity. In addition, the perpendicularly to each other. At 0.2B interval, the BCR
settlements associated with this u/B value were essentially increases almost up to the fourth layer of reinforcement,
those of unreinforced sand. This result implies that a high whereas it converges at the second layer of reinforcement at
concentration of Tirecell-reinforcement within this depth the 0.5B interval. This convergence meant that the
of sand sufficiently can reinforce the sand to produce reinforcement was effective within the depth of the stress
higher bearing capacities and lower settlements. Therefore, influence zone and that the bearing capacity can be
when u/B is large enough, the Tirecell-reinforcement does expected to increase within the depth. However, the
not interfere with the formation of the failure planes, and, increase rate of BCR and the decrease rate of SRF by of
in turn, shear failure of the sand occurs above the top of the addition of the reinforcement layer decreased steadily
the uppermost layer of the Tirecell-reinforcement.
SRF
SRF 0.5
1.8 Fig. 12. Variation of BCR with the number of reinforced layers and
0.4 interval of reinforcement (Dr ¼ 55%).
1.6
1.4 0.3
0.7
Fig. 11. Variation of BCR and SRF with embedded depths of the first
Tirecell-reinforced layer (Dr ¼ 55%). 0.6
SRF
0.5
0.4
Table 7
0.3
BCR and SRF with different embedded depths of reinforced layers
(Dr ¼ 55%) 0.2
2 0.1
u/B qr (kN/m ) BCR SRF
0.0
0.2 637.46 2.71 0.21
0 1 2 3 4
0.3 470.69 2.00 0.31
0.4 402.09 1.71 0.39 Number of reinforcing layers, N
0.5 323.63 1.38 0.50
1.0 245.15 1.04 0.87 Fig. 13. Variation of SRF with the number of reinforced layers and
interval of reinforcement (Dr ¼ 55%).
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Table 8 References
BCR and SRF with variation of reinforcement interval (Dr ¼ 55%)
Dash, S.K., Foose, G.J., Krishnaswamy, N.R., Rajagopal, K., 2001.
N Dz/B qr (kN/m2) BCR SRF Bearing capacities of strip footings supported on geocell-reinforced
sand. Geotextiles and Geomembranes 19, 235–256.
1 0.2 637.46 2.71 0.21
Ecoflex, 2006. Scour protection mat & head and wing walls, Shoalhaven,
0.3 470.74 2.00 0.31
NSW. /http://www.ecoflex.com.au/erosiongalleryS.
0.4 402.09 1.71 0.39
Foose, G.J., Benson, C.H., Boscher, P.J., 1996. Sand reinforced with
0.5 323.63 1.38 0.50
shredded waste tire. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE 122,
2 0.2 706.10 3.00 0.16 760–767.
0.3 539.39 2.29 0.24 Fragaszy, R.J., Lawton, E., 1984. Bearing capacity of reinforced sand
0.4 451.12 1.92 0.26 subgradeds. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, ASCE 110,
0.5 362.86 1.54 0.30 1500–1507.
Garga, V.K., O’Shaughnessy, V., 2000. Tire-reinforced earth fill. Part1:
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placed above the water table—five-year field study. Transportation
Research Record No. 1714. Transportation Research Board,
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obtain effective reinforcement by Tirecell, one layer of Humphrey, D.N., Katz, L.E., 2002. Water quality effects of using tire
reinforcement is recommended. shreds below the ground water table. Final Report. Department of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Main, Orono,
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5. Conclusions Humphrey, D.N., Manion, W.P., 1992. Properties of tire chips for light
weight fill. Grouting, Soil Improvement and Geosynthetics, Geotech-
This study presents a newly devised method by use of nical Special Publication, no. 30, vol. 2. ASCE, New York, NY,
pp. 1345–1355.
waste tires called ‘Tirecell’ for soil improvement. To Humphrey, D.N., Whetten, N., Weaver, J., Recker, K., Cosgrove, T.A.,
confirm soil improvement by Tirecell, plate load test 1998. Tire shreds as lightweight fill for embankments and retaining
results were compared with the results obtained from plate walls. Recycled Materials in Geotechnical Applications, Geotechnical
load tests using geocell. From the comparison, Tirecell Special Publications, no. 79, pp. 51–65.
reinforced the sand to produce higher bearing capacities Ladd, R.S., 1978. Preparing test specimens using undercompaction.
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and lower settlements. Tirecell reinforcement was effective Moon, C.M., 2003. Environmental effect of waste tires as earth
within the depth of plate width, and the BCR was higher at reinforcing material. Master Thesis. Inha university (in Korean).
lower densities. BCR in loose sand was more than 2.5 at Nguyen, T.H., 1996. Utilization of used tires in civil engineering—The
the depth of reinforcement of 0.2 times the plate width, and Pneusol ‘Tyresoil’. In: Proceedings of the second International
the BCR decreased as the density of the sand increased. Congress on Environmental Geotechnics, Rotterdam, Netherlands,
pp. 809–814.
Also higher BCR was achieved by adding reinforcement Omar, M.T., Das, B.M., Yen, S.C., Puri, V.K., Cook, E.E., 1993.
layers within the stress influence zone. Width ratio of Ultimate bearing capacity of rectangular foundations on geogrid-
Tirecell to plate that did not affect the bearing capacity of reinforced sand. Geotechnical Testing Journal, ASTM 16 (2), 246–252.
Tirecell-reinforced sand was about b/B ¼ 2.0, whereas it O’Shaughnessy, V., Garga, V.K., 2000. Tire-reinforced earth fill. Part3:
environmental assessment. Canadian Geotechnical Journal 37,
was about 2.5 in case of geocell; the difference may be due
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to the high stiffness of Tirecell. Reid, R.A., Soupir, S.P., Schaefer, V.R., 1998. Mitigation of void
development under bridge approach slabs using rubber tire chips.
Recycled Materials in Geotechnical Applications, Geotechnical
Acknowledgments Special Publications, no. 79, pp. 37–50.
Rma, 2004. U.S. Scrap Tire Markets 2003 Edition. Rubber Manufacturer
The authors express their sincere thanks to KICTTEP Association. /http://www.rma.org/scrap_tiresS.
(Korea Institute of Construction & Transportation Tech- Seo, D.S., 2003. Bearing capacity of Tirecell and geocell in sand. Master
Thesis. Inha University (in Korean).
nology Evaluation and Planning) for the financial assis- Yoon, Y.W., Cheon, S.H., Kang, D.S., 2004. Bearing capacity and
tance. Thanks are also extended to Mr. Kyung-Soon, Choi settlement of tire-reinforced sands. Geotextiles and Geomembranes 22,
for his much help. 439–453.