Investigations on Cementitious Composites Based on Rubber Particle Waste Additions

The amount of waste rubber has gradually increased over recent years because of over-growing use of rubber products. The disposal of waste rubber has caused serious environmental problems. The incorporation of recycled materials into cementitious composites is a feasible alternative that has gained ground in civil construction. The performance of such materials is much affected not only by the rubber addition, but also the particle size which has been controversially reported in the literature. In order to investigate the single effect of rubber particles into cement based materials, rubber cementitious composites were prepared with no silica particle additions. A full factorial design has been conducted to assess the influence of the rubber particle size (0.84/0.58 mm and 0.28/0.18 mm); mass fraction used (5, 15 and 30%); and water/cement ratio (0.35 and 0.50) on the physic-mechanical properties of the composites. The materials were characterized through apparent density, porosity, compressive strength, flexural strength, modulus of elasticity and microstructural analysis. The interactions of rubber particle size, rubber fraction and water/cement ratio affected significantly the density and compressive strength of the composites. The apparent porosity was influenced mainly by the rubber particle size. The flexural strength was affected by the main factors and the modulus of elasticity was affected by the interaction factors rubber particle size and fraction, and rubber fraction and w/c ratio.