THE PROPERTIES OF RUBBERIZED CONCRETES

Utilization of industrial waste products in concrete has attracted attention both with the energy crisis in the 70s and the rise of environmental consciousness. Most of the concrete properties can be improved by incorporating different kinds of industrial wastes. In this study, the changes of the properties for the rubberized concretes were investigated in terms of both size and amount of the rubber chips. The concretes are postulated to be a potential material especially for construction applications which are subjected to impact effects such as crash barriers, bridges and roads. With the cylindrical and cubic specimens produced by adding rubbers of volume ratios of 15, 30 and 45 % into C 20 quality concrete, the physical and mechanical tests were conducted at the end of 7, 28-day and 6-month, and sigma-epsilon diagrams were drawn. From the diagrams the toughness values and plastic and elastic energy capacities of these rubberized concretes were determined. It was observed that plastic energy capacities began to increase when the high elastic energy capacity of normal concrete was reduced by adding rubber. Due to their high plastic energy capacities these concretes showed high strains especially under impact effects.