Pabón Vázquez, Esteban I.

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    Experimental study of possible uses of crumb rubber for structural applications
    (2014) Pabón Vázquez, Esteban I.; Wendichansky Bard, Daniel A.; College of Engineering; Guevara Guillen, José O.; Suárez, Luis E.; Department of Civil Engineering; Colón Ramírez, Silvestre
    Currently many nations, including the United States, confront one of the biggest international problems concerning the disposal of solid waste, as scrap tires are when they are not properly disposed. To contribute to the solution of this problem, this research was aimed to study some alternatives scrap tires can have in its use in structural engineering applications through the crumb rubber process. In order to meet these objectives, two types of experimental tests were performed. The first were used to determine the mechanical properties of the crumb rubber, while the latter to evaluate the possible structural applications. The latter included: (1) the use of the crumb rubber as confinement to increase the compressive strength of slender steel elements, (2) the use of the rubber as infill into steel frames to withstand lateral loads caused by earthquakes, and (3) reinforce the crumb rubber along with steel rebars to create a shear wall with more stiffness to withstand lateral loads caused by earthquakes. The results of these tests showed that: (1) the compressive strength of steel elements with high slenderness can be increased up to 80% using the crumb rubber as a confinement element , (2) the crumb rubber infill panel used in steel frames is sensitive to the slenderness of the wall, making unfeasible to construct a real size wall due to the slenderness increment, (3) the presence of steel in the reinforced crumb rubber shear wall increase the system stiffness and generate an hysteretic behavior, dissipating energy through load cycles. Finally, the results of the reinforced crumb rubber shear wall were applied to a real building frame as an alternative design to resist the lateral loads induced by earthquakes and were compared to a typical masonry infill frames building. With those models a time history analysis was performed using the structural analysis program SAP2000. It was found that the reinforced crumb rubber shear wall reduced the base shear forces to 40-68 %, resulting in a reduction of the frame sections sizes and costs, facilitating the building design and construction process.