A comprehensive review on the applications of waste tire rubber in cement concrete

Disposal of waste tire rubber has become a major environmental issue in all parts of the world. Every year millions of tires are discarded, thrown away or buried all over the world, representing a very serious threat to the ecology. It was estimated that almost 1000 million tires end their service life every year and out of that, more than 50% are discarded to landfills or garbage without any treatment. By the year 2030, there would be 5000 million tires to be discarded on a regular basis. Tire burning, which was the easiest and cheapest method of disposal, causes serious fire hazards. Temperature in that area rises and the poisonous smoke with uncontrolled emissions of potentially harmful compounds is very dangerous to humans, animals and plants. The residue powder left after burning pollutes the soil. One of the possible solutions for the use of waste tire rubber is to incorporate into cement concrete. This paper presents an overview of some of the research published regarding the fresh and hardened properties of rubberized concrete. Studies show that there is a promising future for the use of waste tire rubber as a partial substitute for aggregate in cement concrete. It was noticed from literatures that workable concrete mixtures can be made with scrap tire rubber and it is possible to make light weight rubber aggregate concrete for some special purposes. Rubberized concrete shows high resistance to freeze-thaw, acid attack and chloride ion penetration. Use of silica fume in rubberized concrete enables to achieve high strength and high resistance to sulfate, acid and chloride environments.