UTILIZATION OF SHREDDED TYRES IN HIGHWAY ENGINEERING

G.Venkatappa.Rao1 and R.K.Dutta2

ABSTRACT

With the alarming growth in vehicle population in India, scrap tyres are beginning to pile up.
The paper presents an engineering overview of use of shredded scrap tyres. In other parts of
the developed world, they find encouraging use in highway embankment construction as well
as light weight fill. It details laboratory studies being conducted at IIT Delhi to evaluate the
engineering behaviour of shredded tyre-soil mixtures for possible use in highways.

INTRODUCTION

With globalization of Indian economy and consequent development process of infrastructure,

the number of vehicles on road is on the increase. The total number of registered buses,
trucks, cars/jeeps/taxis and two wheelers upto 1997 in India were 0.488 million, 2.26 million,
4.662 million and 25.693 million. With an annual cumulative growth rate of 8%, these
figures were estimated as 0.644 million buses, 3.176 million trucks, 64.94 million
cars/jeeps/taxis and 35.457 million two wheelers on 31st March, 2001 (Automan 1999 and
Statistical Yearbook 2000). Such an alarming growth in number of vehicles apart from
causing noise and air pollution, will begin to cause pollution in terms of stock piles of
discarded tyres. Considering the average life of the tyres used in these vehicles as 10 years
after retreading twice, the total number of waste tyres will be of the order of 112 million per
year. The previous use of waste tyres as fuel is now prohibited by the Indian Government due
to its environmental impact.
The manufacturing process for tyres combines raw materials into a special form that
yields unique properties such as flexibility, strength, resiliency and high frictional resistance.
If tyres are reused as a construction material instead of being burnt, the unique properties of
tyres can once again be exploited in a beneficial manner. In this context, the use of shredded
tyres in highway applications is considered a potentially significant avenue. Experience in
developed nations indicates that they can be used in highway construction as aggregate
replacement, light-weight embankment fills crossing soft or unstable ground, regular fills etc.
The light weight fill application is more interesting because it would not only provide a
means of disposing scrap tyres but also help solve difficult economical and technical
problems associated with settlement and instability of highway construction over soft ground.
Keeping this in view, this paper first presents an international scenario regarding the many
applications of scrap tyre shreds/chips and later brings out the rationale for their use in India.

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1. Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi - 110016
2. Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi - 110016
 TYRE SHREDDING

Tyre shreds are waste tyres that have been cut into pieces by a shredder cutter. Many types of
machineries are available in the USA and other countries for this task. The product of
shredding is referred as "tyre chips" when they are generally between 12 mm to 50 mm in
size and are generally uniform in size. The steel belting also gets cut in the process. The term
"tyre shreds" are used when particles are larger (Lee et al 1999). . The specific gravity of the
tyre shreds/chips varies from 1.02 to 1.27 (Ahmed 1993, Foose 1996) depending upon the
quantity of steel belting present.

USE OF TYRE SHREDS/CHIPS IN HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Light weight fill

The unit weight of pure tyre chip fills typically ranges from 3 kN/m3 to 5.5 kN/m3. This
number is a function of chip size and compaction (Bosscher et al, 1997). Tyre shreds as light
weight fill could be advantageous in embankment construction in terms of slope stability and
reduction in settlement. Many successful cases of such a use are available in literature. As
part of an improvement project on US highway 42 in southern Oregon, an existing 3.3 m high
highway embankment was widened to 6.1 m and raised by 1.2 m in the conventional manner.
The additional embankment load has remobilized an ancient landslide which moved
progressively down the slope perpendicular to the highway. Shredded tyres were hence used
as light weight fill above this landslide in conjunction with a counter weight of soil at the
down slope to increase the factor of safety for slope stability, as shown in Fig. 1.
Deflectometer tests indicate the pavement section over the shredded tyre fill meets 20-year
design life criteria, however it deflects more than a similar pavement section over earth
embankment (Upton and Machan, 1993).

Hoppe (1994) has reported the construction of two embankments near Williamsburg,
Virginia. One contained a shredded tyre/soil section (50/50 volumetric ratio) approximately
160 m long and another contained a section of shredded tyres around 80 m long. The
maximum embankment height was approximately 7.5 m with a side slope of 1V:2H. Vertical
pressures under shredded-tyre embankments were found to be 40% lower than under
conventional embankments. The typical cross section is shown in Fig. 2. Similar work was
also carried out at Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Vermont. Satisfactory performance has been
documented in each of these projects (Read et al, 1991; Blumenthal and Zelibor, 1993;
Turgeon, 1989; "Recycled" 1989; "Tyre -Fill", 1990).
Backfill
Tweedie et al (1998) tested a 4.88 m high full scale retaining wall with tyre shreds as a
backfill. They found that the measured average at rest earth pressure with tyre shreds was
about 35% less at the base than the conventional granular backfill (Fig. 3).

Field studies
 Bosscher et al. (1993) described the construction and performance of a test embankment
designed to evaluate the use of shredded waste tyres as soil replacement in highway
construction. On the basis of the results, he concluded the following:
1. Normal construction machinery can be used successfully with tyre chips. Vibratory or
static compaction does not significantly induce compaction in tyre chips.
2. After an initial period of adjustment, the overall performance of a gravel road founded on
tyre chips appears similar to that of most gravel roads.
3. Tyre chips used as a replacementfor fill under a road perform better when covered by 0.9
m thick soil caps compared with chips covered by only 0.3 m of soil.
4. Shredded tyres do not show and likelihood of being a hazardous waste. Compared with
other wastes for which leach test and environmental monitoring data are available, the
tyre leach data indicate little or no likelihood of shredded tyres having adverse effects on
ground water quality.
Bosscher et al (1997) further concluded that chips smaller than 75 mm are easy to handleand
that an initial period of differential settlement in the fill can be expected. To prevent
migration of soil cover into chips a geotextile cover may be used. Final surfacing should be
constructed after initial settlements are over.

Insulation to limit frost penetration

Humphrey and Eaton (1995) reported the uses of shredded tyres in a test road to limit the
frost penetration depth on a dead-end town road in Richmond, Maine. During spring thaw the
road becomes severely rutted even though existing road was surfaced with more than 45 cm
of clean sandy gravel and gravelley sand. The test site of 285 m length was broken into five
sections. Tyre shreds of sizes 15 cm and 30 cm were used. The thickness of overlying soil
cover was 30 cm, 45 cm or 60 cm. The top 10 cm of the soil cover was gravel finer than 2.5
cm. The typical application is shown in Fig. 4. The performance of these tests section was
monitored and it was found that tyre shreds are 8 times better than gravel for reducing frost
penetration. It is evident that if subgrade soils do not freeze during winter, there will be no
frost heaves and there will be no loss of strength during the spring thaw.

Limitation
There have been some reports of problems with embankments constructed of shredded waste
tyres igniting (“How to” 1996). A road way embankment containing shredded waste tyres
near Pomeroy, Washington had to be closed because it caught fire. This is a major
disadvantage of using pure shredded tyres only.

USE OF SHRED-SOIL MIXTURES

Retaining wall and bridge abutment backfill

The mixtures of tyre shred and shred-soil mixtures can be used as backfill material for
retaining walls and bridge abutment. The benefits in such applications are (i) being light in
weight, they will exert less earth pressure on the wall which will lead to reduction in the
thickness of the wall, and (ii) Reduced settlement. If the wall is itself founded on the
compressible soil, then the settlements will be less, meaning less cracking of the wall,
thereby the wall can be found on spread footing rather than pile foundation. Humphrey et al
(1997) has reported one such construction at Topsham-Brunswick Bypass Project, located in
Topsham Maine, as shown in Fig. 5.

USE OF SCRAP TYRES IN RETAINING WALL CONSTRUCTION

Retaining walls may also be built using full waste tyres. The California Department of
Transportaion (Caltrans, 1988) has experimented with full tyre walls on the Plumas National
Forest in Region 5 ranging from 1.5 m to 3.0 m height in a variety of settings as support for
roadway shoulders, over steep banks and so forth. Typically these structures are a single row
of tyres stacked, vertically or with some batter, three to six tyres high. The tyres are usually
not connected in any manner, although rebar or posts may stake them to the ground as shown
in Fig. 6. The tyres are backfilled with local soil or shot rock, which is often seeded and
mulched.

POTENTIAL IN FRENCH DRAINS AND DRAINAGE LAYERS

The hydraulic conductivity of tyre shreds/ tyre shreds-soil mixture is greater than most of
granular aggregates. The range of hydraulic conductivities reported in literature for tyre chips
varied from 0.58 cm/s to 23.5 cm/s. Edil and Bosscher (1994) used mixtures of tyre chips
with 7.62 cm maximum size and a clean uniform sand . Surcharge pressures were varied from
0 to 137.89 kPa. Ahmed (1993) used mixtures of tyre chips with either 1.27 cm or 2.54 cm
maximum size and two soil types i.e. Ottawa sand and Crossby Till. No surcharge pressure
was applied. The hydraulic conductivities varied from 1.6 * 10-4 cm/s to 8.7 * 10-3 cm/s in
case of Ottawa sand and 8.9 * 10-7 cm/s to 9.7 * 10-3 cm/s with Crossby Till. The tyre shreds
or chips - soil mixture can be used as French drains along roadsides or drainage layers
beneath roads as shown in Fig. 7.
 WORK DONE AT IIT DELHI
Conventional fill

The conventional fill like aggregates, sand etc. are being used for filling up the low lying
areas in our country. Mixtures of tyre shreds and soil can also be used as an alternative. In
this application, the special properties of tyre shreds are not required. The main concern is
disposal of tyres.

Production of tyre chips

After removing the tread rubber, the whole tyre was first cut into strips of either 10 mm or 20
mm width and the steel belting was removed. From these strips, chips were obtained by
manually cutting with the help of dye and hammer. The chips were obtained in three different
sizes of 10 mm*10 mm (Type I)), 20 mm*20 mm (Type II) and 20 mm*10 mm (Type III).
Their average specific gravity was 1.12. The thickness of these chips varied from 2.25 mm to
10.8 mm as they are made from scooter , car as well as truck tyres.

Sand used

The investigation was carried out on locally available Badarpur sand which is medium
grained uniform quarry sand having sub-angular particles of weathered quartzite. The sand
has a uniformity coefficient of 2.11 and a coefficient of curvature of 0.96 respectively. The
compaction density of Badarpur sand was maintained at 14.890.27 kN/m3 (relative density
of 0.66).

Compressibility
The compressibility of sand-chip mixture has been first studied by compacting them in a rigid
mould having diameter of 15.2 cm and height of 17.8 cm. The vertical strain caused by an
increase in vertical stress is then measured. The results of this study are shown in Fig. 8(a) to
Fig. 8(c). It is evident that the compressibility decreases with the increase in stress level or
decrease in chip content. However for the purpose of embankment construction it may be
assumed that the compressibility of admixtures is similar to soil and within allowable limits.
Triaxial tests
The desired percentage of the tyre chips was first uniformly mixed with the sand in dry
condition. The sand was then soaked. Saturated specimens of 100mm dia and 200mm high
were then prepared and drained triaxial tests were conducted as per Bishop and Henkel
(1962) at confining pressures ranging from 34.5 to 276 kPa using a deformation rate of 1.016
mm/min.
Parameters varied
The compositions of sand-chip mixtures contain a chip content of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by
weight and 6.83%, 13.54%, 19.83% and 26.22% by volume.
Strength ratios
The values of strength ratio (the ratio of the strength of a reinforced specimen to that of an
unreinforced specimen) under different confining pressures are given in Table 1. From the
table the following can be observed.
1. For Type I inclusion (10 mm*10 mm) size at 3 = 34.5 kPa, the increase in strength was
20% for 5% chip content, and 36% for 20% chip content. On the other hand, at 3 = 276
kPa, the increase in strength was only from 10% to 13% when the chip content increased
from 5 to 20%.
2. For Type II inclusion (20 mm*20 mm) size at 3 = 34.5 kPa, the increase in strength was
24% for 5% chip content, and 42% for 20% chip content. On the other hand, at 3 = 276
kPa, the increase in strength was only from 10% to 14% when the chip content increased
from 5 to 20%.
Table 1. Strength ratios at different confining pressures

Type % Strength ratios at confining pressure (kPa) of

of chips 34.5 69 138 276
chips

5 1.20 1.18 1.14 1.10

10 1.25 1.21 1.18 1.10
I 15 1.31 1.27 1.20 1.12
20 1.36 1.30 1.22 1.13
5 1.24 1.21 1.17 1.10
10 1.30 1.26 1.21 1.11
II 15 1.36 1.32 1.23 1.13
20 1.42 1.36 1.24 1.14
5 1.41 1.28 1.19 1.10
10 1.46 1.31 1.21 1.12
III 15 1.51 1.33 1.24 1.13
20 1.56 1.37 1.25 1.15

3. For Type III inclusion (20 mm*10 mm) size at 3 = 34.5 kPa, the increase in strength was
41% for 5% chip content, and 56% for 20% chip content. On the other hand, at 3 = 276
kPa, the increase in strength was only from 10% to 15% when the chip content increased
from 5 to 20%.
There is a definite pattern indicating an increase in strength ratio with increase in percent
inclusion and decrease with increase in confining pressure.
California bearing ratio test
The CBR of dry sand without and with 20% chips of Type II has been determined in a rigid
mould having diameter of 15.2 cm and height of 17.8 cm. The diameter of the plunger used
was 50 mm. The rate of deformation was kept 1.25 mm/min. The result of this study has been
shown in Fig. 9. The CBR value of the sand corresponding to 2.5 mm and 5.0 mm
deformation were found to be 16.23% and 11.73%. Whereas the values of CBR for the sand
with chips of Type II are 14.61% and 18.19% corresponding to these deformations. Therefore
it can be inferred that the CBR values for the sand with and without chip Type II are of the
same order.
Repetitive load test
The repetitive load-deformation behaviour of sand with and without 20% chips of Type II has
been studied. The mixture of sand and chips was first compacted in a rigid mould of diameter
15.2 cm and height of 17.8 cm. A repetitive load of 4000 N through a 15 cm diameter circular
plate was then applied at a test speed of 75 mm/min for 1000 and 10,000 number of cycles
for sand and sand-chip mixture. The variation in permanent vertical deformation with number
of load repetitions of sand and sand-chip is shown in Fig 10. The deformation of sand is
found to increase upto 0.8 mm at 1000 number of repetitions. Whereas, sand with 20% chip
Type II, the permanent vertical deformation is 3.69 mm for the same number of cycles. But

after 2000 number of cycles, there is no change in the permanent vertical deformation. Thus
after 2000 number of cycles, the sand-chip mixture behaves like sand.

CONCLUSION

Experience the world over conclusively demonstrates that scrap tyres can be successfully
utilized in highway construction. The experiments reported here, also confirms that:
1. Compressibility of tyre chip-soil mixtures under static and repeated loads is nearly similar
to that of soil.
2. The triaxial tests on tyre chips-soil mixtures reveal that there is also a strength
improvement - though marginally.
With this in view, it is recommended tyre chip-soil mixtures can be of use in Indian situation
too, keeping in view the alarming growth in scrap tyres compiled with environment issues.
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Fig. 8(a) Compressibility of sand-tyre chip mixture with Type I inclusion.

Fig. 8(b) Compressibility of sand-tyre chip mixture with Type II inclusion.

Fig. 8(c) Compressibility of sand-tyre chip mixture with Type III inclusion.