Seismic behavior of tire waste-sand mixtures for transportation infrastructure in cold regions

Tire wastes have many properties that are valuable from a geotechnical engineering perspective, such as low density, high strength, thermal insulation, energy absorption capacity, permeability, durability, compressibility, resilience, and high frictional strength. Thus, tire wastes offer good thermal characteristics in resisting frost penetration and have good drainage characteristics, being as permeable as coarse granular soil for fill materials. The many advantages of tire wastes make the material suitable for transportation infrastructure construction in cold regions. Also, tire wastes with high damping property make them a preferable admixture with sand for transportation infrastructures in seismic regions. This study aimed to determine the seismic performance of certain tire waste-sand mixtures in cold regions. A 70% sand-30% tire crumb mixture by weight (TC30) with a very high damping property was selected for analysis as an engineering material for transportation infrastructure. Small-scale shake-table tests were conducted on this material as well as on a sand-only sample under two different temperatures, 0 degrees C and 20 degrees C, to simulate cold-region and moderate-temperature performance, respectively. The 1999 Izmit Earthquake Excitation (EW) (Mw = 7.4) was taken as the input motion. Test results showed that the tire waste-sand mixture at 0 degrees C showed better seismic performance than that at room temperature, suggesting that a tire waste-sand mixture in cold regions may reduce seismic hazards to infrastructure.