A Study on the Effect of Shredded Tire Size on the Mechanical Behavior of Sand and Shredded Tire Mixtures Using Direct Shear Test

In this study, the mechanical behavior of the sand and shredded tire mixtures is studied by using direct shear box test. The aim of this research is to understand the effect of size effect of shredded tire particles on the mechanical behavior of the mixtures. Three different sizes of shredded tires are used in this study. First, the compressibility of the mixtures under consolidation pressure is studied and then, the mechanical behavior is investigated during the shear load. Under the compression stage, it is seen that the compressibility of shredded tires are much bigger than the sand alone. Also, it is seen that the compressibility is reduced as the size increases. During the shear loading stage, it is found out that the internal friction angle of the mixtures reduces as the percentage of the shredded tire increases. In addition, the friction angle is obtained larger as the size increases. As obvious, the compressibility of the mixtures increases with the increase in the percentage of shredded tire content. This is more effective until 20% content of shredded tire. The size of the shredded tire is not so effective on the compressibility, since the volumetric variation of medium to coarse shredded tire was almost equal. It is noted that in this paper, the variation of the friction angle and volumetric behavior of mixtures were investigated for different levels of specimen deformations.