Geotechnical Reuse of Shredded Scrap Tires to Reinforce the Karewa Soils of Kashmir

Abstract

Wasted tyres have become a growing  disposal problem throughout the world which is caused by  increasing the number of vehicles on the roads. On the other  hand, Karewa soils exhibit generally undesirable properties.  They tend to have low strength, compressible, swell when  wetted and shrink when dried. To overcome this problem, the  present study is being conducted to investigate the effect of  shredded scrap tires on the strength parameters of Karewa  soils of Kashmir. In this thesis work, the shredded tire  content taken is 0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10% by weight of  soil and the size of shredded scrap tires taken is 10mm to  40mm in length and 10mm to 15mm in width. First the tests  such as sieve analysis, specific gravity and Atterberg’s limits  of Karewa soil has performed. To assess the behaviour of  Karewa soils reinforced with shredded tyres, Proctor  compaction test, CBR test and UCS tests were conducted.  Test results show that due to the addition of shredded tyres  to Karewa soil, the CBR value of soil increases continuously  with the addition of shred tyres while its peak value was  founded at 8% of shred tyres. At 8% addition of shredded  tyres, its CBR value increases by 173.44% as compared to  un-reinforced soil. The proctor compaction test results show  that with the addition of shred tyres to soil, its Optimum  Moisture Content (OMC) increases while Maximum Dry  Density (MDD) decreases continuously. The Unconfined  Compression test (UCT) results shows that with the addition  of shred tyres, the unconfined compression strength  increases upto 8% shred content and then declined at 10%  shred content. Thus 8% is the optimum shred content at  which both CBR and UCS shows better results as compared  to unreinforced soil. The results have shown both  numerically and graphically in this thesis work.