Enhancement of Dynamic Damping in Eco-Friendly Railway Concrete Sleepers Using Waste-Tyre Crumb Rubber

Abstract

There is no doubt that the use of waste rubber in concrete applications is a genius alternative because Styrene is the main component of rubber, which has a strong toxicity and is harmful to humans. Therefore, it will significantly reduce impacts on the environment when waste rubber can be recycled for genuine uses. In this paper, the dynamic properties of high-strength rubberised concrete have been investigated by carrying out various experiments to retain the compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength, electrical resistivity, and damping characteristics by replacing fine aggregates with micro-scale crumb rubber. Over 20 variations of concrete mixes have been performed. The experimental results confirm that a decrease in the compressive strength can be expected when the rubber content is increased. The new findings demonstrate that the high-strength concrete can be enhanced by optimal rubber particles in order to improve splitting tensile and flexural strengths, damping properties, and electrical resistivity. It is therefore recommended to consider the use of rubberised concrete (up to 10 wt. % crumb rubber) in designing railway sleepers as this will improve the service life of railway track systems and reduce wastes to the environment.

Experimental Investigation on the Freeze–Thaw Resistance of Steel Fibers Reinforced Rubber Concrete

“…The reuse of rubber in concrete results in two major opposing effects: an enhancement in durability and a reduction in mechanical strength [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Replacing more than 25% of fine aggregates with rubber crumb caused the compressive strength of concrete to drop significantly [5].…”

Effect of Extreme Climate on Long-term Performance of Railway Prestressed Concrete Sleepers

“…The authors are also sincerely grateful to the European Commission for the financial sponsorship of the H2020-RISE Project No. 691135 "RISEN: Rail Infrastructure Systems Engineering Network", which enables a global research network that tackles the grand challenge of railway infrastructure resilience and advanced sensing in extreme environments (www.risen2rail.eu) [16].…”

Self-Healing and Highly-Damped Concrete for Applications as Railway Sleepers and Track Slabs

“…This implies that the crack would not be frequently repetitive and the self-healing solution to cracks can still be effective in practice. This project builds on the study of crumb rubber to enhance dynamic damping of concrete sleepers [13][14][15][16][17]. Additional use of micro fibres has been adopted to also control the crack width.…”