International Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering IJCEE-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 03

23

An Experimental Study on Compressive

Strength of Concrete Containing Crumb Rubber
Mohammad Reza sohrabi1, Mohammad karbalaie2

Abstract A lot of rubber is produced worldwide. For

example, 3.6 million tons rubber is produced annually only in US.
It is not possible to discharge the rubbers in the environment
because they decompose very slowly and cause lots of pollution.
So, it is necessary to have a relevant use of these wastages. These
waste materials can be used to improve some mechanical
properties of concrete. Addition of rubber to concrete results in
the improvement of some mechanical and dynamical properties,
such as more energy adsorption, better ductility, and better crack
resistance. In this paper, the 7- day and 28- day compressive
strength of concretes containing crumb rubber; silica fume and
crumb rubber; Nano silica and crumb rubber; and Nano silica,
silica fume and crumb rubber is investigated. For this purpose,
216 concrete specimens were prepared and their compressive
strength was investigated
Index Term Concrete, rubber, Nano silica, silica fume

I. INTRODUCTION
Currently, waste materials resulting from various physical and
chemical processes are the most important challenge in the
industrial and developing countries. Extensive investigations
on wastage recycling are being implemented to minimize the
environmental damages. In this regard, construction
investigators, like other recycling and production industries,
have also achieved advances in using these waste materials.
One of the non-recyclable materials enters the environment is
automotive used tires. Investigations show that used tires are
composed of materials which do not decompose under
environmental conditions and cause serious contaminations.
Burning is a choice for their decomposition; however the gases
exhausted from the tire burning results in harmful pollutions.
Based on examinations, another way is using the tires in
concrete. This results in the improvement of such mechanical
and dynamical properties as energy adsorption, ductility, and
resistance to cracking. However, this may cause a decrease in
compressive strength of the concrete which will be
compensated by adding Nano silica to rubber- containing
concretes. [1]- [3]
II. BACKGROUND
Taha et al. [4] added various percentages of 5-20 mm crumb
rubber to the concrete. By substituting 100 vol% of coarse
aggregate by rubber, the compressive strength decreased by
Mohammad Reza sohrabi1
Corresponding author
(Phone: +98-541-2426206;
E-mail: sohrabi@hamoon.usb.ac.ir or mrsohr@yahoo.com ).
Mohammad karbalaie 2 (E-mail: m.k.21310@gmail.com).
1, 2
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University
of Sistan and Baluchestan, P.O. Box 9816745437,Zahedan, Iran.

75%. They related this decrease to variation of the shape and

the size of transmission zone from the vicinity of coarse
aggregate to the vicinity of rubber crumbs.
Olivars et al. [5] observed that substituting 3.5 and 5 vol%
recycled rubber in cement matrix has not significant effect on
the compressive strength and the elasticity.
Topcu [6] replaced fine aggregate by rubber fine grains and
coarse aggregate by coarse rubber crumbs. The 6-month
cylindrical compressive strength of the initial concrete was
33.67 MPa which decreased to 20.23, 11.06 and 7.16 MPa by
adding 15, 30 and 45% rubber fine grains, and 15.75, 10.82
and 7.72 MPa by adding the same amount of coarse rubber
crumbs. This shows that coarse rubber grains show more
unfavorable effect on compressive strength than fine rubber
particles. They also reported that the samples had considerable
load bearing capability after rupture and offered significant
displacements without complete dissociation. These
displacements and deformations were reversible after load
releasing.
Examinations show that if the rubber grains have more
rough surfaces or pretreatment is performed on them, better
adhesion will be achieved between rubber grains and concrete
mixture and it will be possible to obtain higher compressive
strengths. Pretreatment can be washing rubber crumbs by
water, acid, etc. [7]
Albano et al. [8] investigated rubber- containing concretes
with different rubber sizes and pretreatments. They concluded
that the rubber- containing concrete had much less
compressive strength than the conventional one. For example,
composites containing 5% rubber with 0.59 mm in size
resulted in 60% strength reduction. By increasing the rubber
content to 10 weight percent (wt %), the strength reduction
increases to 88%. They mentioned that the presence of tiny
holes in the rubber grains which fill with water and create
holes in the mixture, was the main reason for this observation.
Eldin and Senouci [9] also replaced coarse and fine
aggregate of the concrete by rubber crumbs and rubber
powder, respectively. They pretreated the old rubbers by
water. By 100% substitution of coarse aggregate by rubber
crumbs, the maximum compressive strength reached 85%. But
the effect of sand replacement by fine rubber grains resulted in
65% strength reduction.
Hai Huynh [10] added 1-10 wt % (with respect to cement
content) rubber crumbs with 4.75 mm in size to concrete and
did not observe any significant change in the compressive
strength.
Fig 1 shows some images of concrete specimens containing

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International Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering IJCEE-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 03

rubber coarse grains under compression. The images show that
the specimens have considerable load bearing capability after
failure and offer significant displacements without complete
bursting. These displacements and deformations are reversible
after load releasing which confirms high energy absorption
capability of rubber-containing concrete [10].

Fig. 1. Specimens failure containing coarse rubber under compression [10]

Joe et al. [11] demonstrated that addition of nanomaterials

can contribute to the improvement of compressive strength of
concretes. They compared the effect of conventional
pozzolanic additives such as silica fume and nanoadditives.
While most conventional additives begin to enter the hydration
reaction after a passive period, nanoadditives enter the
hydration reaction once they are added to the cement paste.
Lee et al. [12] concluded that the cement paste layer near
the aggregates is one of major disadvantages of concretes and
rupture usually starts from this region. The presence of large
amount of needle-like crystals in this region gives rise to stress
concentration and finally concrete rupture. Using
nanomaterials, this rough surface becomes smoother, hence
providing a better path for force transmission. In addition to
above mentioned advantages, nanovoids in cement paste can
be filled up with nanomaterials and a denser structure can be
achieved.
In recent years, using silica fume in concrete in order to
increase its strength has attracted much attention. Today,
obtaining compressive strengths higher than 100 MPa has
become possible by applying silica fume and superplasticizers.
Silica fume improves the concrete microscopic texture. Filling
capability and pozzolanic property of silica fume results in
filling the capillary gel pores with this material and its
compounds with calcium hydroxide. This phenomenon
increases the concrete strength significantly. The reaction of
silica fume in concrete depends on the amount of this material.
Studies carried out on the effect of silica fume percentage on
the concrete strength indicate that 10 wt % silica fume in
concrete is suitable for achieving the desired strength [2].
Although some reports show that from chemical point of view,
30-40 wt% silica fume is needed for the maximum strength
[3], in practice, the amount of silica fume added to the

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concrete is much less than this range. It is because of the fact

that large amount of water should be added to achieve a proper
mixture with such a fine silica fume particles. One of the main
features of silica fume which improves the properties of fresh
and hardened concrete is its fine particles. Based on the
existing data [4], most of the silica fume particles are in the
range of 0.01- 0.3 micrometer and their mean particle size
ranges between 0.1- 0.2 micrometer. It is apparent that silica
grains which are 100 times smaller than the cement particles,
fill the free spaces between the cement and increase the
concrete strength.
III. MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this work, 5, 10 and 15 wt% rubber crumbs with respect to
cement is added to the concrete. For increasing the concrete
compressive strength, 10 and 15% silica fume, 2 and 3% nano
silica as well as mixtures of nano silica and silica fume
containing 2 and 10%, 3 and 10%, 2 and 15%, and 3 and 15%
nano silica and silica fume were introduced to the rubbercontaining concrete. The mixture schemes for measuring the 7day and 28- day compressive strengths were performed
according to ACI standard. 400 Kg/m3 cement and the water
to cement ratio of 0.5 were considered. Due to low water to
cement ratio, a superplasticizer called SuperPlast M63 was
used. Type II cement supplied by Ghaen cement factory, fine
aggregates with 0-4.75 mm in size and fineness modulus of 3,
and broken- type coarse aggregates with 4.75- 9.5 mm in size
were used for specimens. Rubber particles with 4.75- 9.5 mm
in size, elastic modulus of 22 and tensile strength of 28 MPa
were prepared by crumbling waste- truck tires from Yazd
Isatis Tire Industry. The specimens were kept under standard
and completely moist conditions and then their 7- day and 28day compressive strength were evaluated.
IV. RESULTS
The experimental results are summarized in table 1. It should
be noted that the following codes are used in table I:
1- C: stands for conventional (plain) concrete.
2- CR: stands for crumb rubber.
3- SF: stands for silica fume.
4- NS: stands for nano silica.
For example, C is indicative of plain concrete; CRC5 of
concrete containing 5% crumb rubber; SFC10 of concrete
containing 10% silica fume; CRSFC5-10 of concrete
containing 5% crumb rubber and 10% silica fume; NSC2 of
concrete containing 2% nano silica; CRNSC15-3 of concrete
containing 15% crumb rubber and 3% nano silica; NSSFC2-15
of concrete containing 2% nanosilica and 15% silica fume; and
CRNSSFC10-3-15 of concrete containing 10% crumb rubber,
3% nano silica and 15% silica fume.

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International Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering IJCEE-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 03

TABLE I
THE RESULTS OF 7AND 28 DAYS COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH
Compressive
Compressive
No.
Specimen
strength
strength
At 7 days (MPa)
At 28 days (MPa)
1
C
31.77
39.68
2
NSC2
30.47
49.48
3
NSC3
32.89
51.30
4
5

SFC10
SFC15

36.00
32.18

56.21
58.80

6
7
8
9

NSSFC2-10
NSSFC2-15
NSSFC3-10
NSSFC3-15

25.45
34.19
36.37

54.56
57.28
56.00

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

CRC5
CRC10
CRC15
CRSFC5-10
CRSFC10-10
CRSFC15-10
CRSFC5-15
CRSFC10-15

33.95
31.41
35.19
25.16
36.26
37.20
32.48
34.00

49.00
35.78
42.10
30.41
50.49
46.41
43.11
49.25

18
19
20
21
22

CRSFC15-15
CRNSC5-2
CRNSC10-2
CRNSC15-2
CRNSC5-3

33.66
32.30
32.60
29.64
26.10

39.86
40.51
39.39
33.13
33.00

23
24

CRNSC10-3
CRNSC15-3

36.20
30.17

43.22
37.79

25
26

CRNSSFC5-2-10
CRNSSFC10-2-10

26.51
30.65

35.55
45.53

27.87

43.40

27

CRNSSFC15-2-10

28
29

CRNSSFC5-2-15
CRNSSFC10-2-15

23.92
31.65

42.22
39.50

30
31

CRNSSFC15-2-15
CRNSSFC5-3-10

28.52
22.38

44.64
37.79

32
33
34
35

CRNSSFC10-3-10
CRNSSFC15-3-10
CRNSSFC5-3-15
CRNSSFC10-3-15

32.30
26.46
27.75
33.48

45.35
45.82
42.99
46.88

36

CRNSSFC15-3-15

26.40
32.12

45.82
44.46

In order to investigate the effect of silica fume on 7- day and

28- day compressive strength, 10 and 15 wt% silica fume were
added to specimens containing 5, 10 and 15% crumb rubber.
According to the results, it can be seen that the compressive
strength increases with silica fume addition. The reason is
related to the filling capability of silica fume fine particles as
well as good adhesion between the rubber and cement paste.
The maximum 7- day compressive strength of rubbercontaining concrete was achieved by CRSFC10-10 specimen
which contained 10% silica fume and 10% crumb rubber. In
this case, the strength was increased by 17% compared with
plain concrete. On the other hand, maximum of 27% increase
in 28- day compressive strength was achieved by CRSFC5-15
specimen.
To increase the compressive strength, 2 and 3% nano silica
was added to crumb-containing specimens. According to the

25

experimental results, addition of nano silica along with a little

amount of crumb rubber causes compressive strength
improvement, especially for 3% nano silica. For example, for
CRNSC5-3 which contains 3% nano silica and 5% crumb
rubber, the 7- day and 28- day compressive strength was
increased by 14 and 9%, respectively.
The reason is that the nano silica helps filling the
nanometric voids in cement paste, and so producing a denser
structure. This results in the increment of concrete
compressive strength. However, nano silica has no
considerable effect on concretes containing 10 and 15% crumb
rubber. The increase of compressive strength in the presence
of nano silica arises from the high pozzolanic activity of nano
silica. It seems that these nano particles provide a large surface
area on which high pozzolanic activity occurs and nano silica
particles react with the calcium hydroxide from cement
hydration reaction and form calcium silicate gel (C-S-H). This
gel is the main constitute for concrete strengthening. It should
be noted that in the case of using nanomaterials, particularly
nano silica in concrete, water shortage occurs which reduces
the fluidity and hardness of the final concrete. Hence, the
slump of concrete decreases, and the concrete in the mold does
not compact properly.
For solving the above mentioned problems and avoiding
water shortage, using superlasticizers is necessary. By
increasing the amount of nano silica, the superlasticizer should
also be increased correspondingly.
In order to increase the strength of rubber-containing
concretes, mixtures of 2% nano silica and 15% silica fume, 3%
nano silica and 10% silica fume, and 3% nano silica and 15%
silica fume were also investigated. In this case, no
considerable improvement was observed for 7- day
compressive strength, but the 28- day strength increased
comparatively. For example, by adding 2% nano silica and
10% silica fume to the concrete containing 5, 10 and 15%
crumb rubber, the strength increased 10, 15 and 6%,
respectively, in comparison with the plain concrete. This
increase was 16, 18 and 12% after addition of 3% nano silica
and 15% silica fume to the same concrete. This increase was
arised from appropriate filling of nano voids by silica fume
and nano silica, thereby providing a denser structure with
respect to conventional concrete. This addition can improve
the 28- day compressive strength of rubber- containing
concrete.
7- day and 28- day compressive strength of specimens
containing rubber, silica fume, nano silica and their mixtures
are shown in Figs 2 and 3. One can see that silica fume causes
more increase than nano silica and their mixtures.

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Compressive Strength At
7 Days(M Pa)

International Journal of Civil & Environmental Engineering IJCEE-IJENS Vol: 11 No: 03

40

26

CR+2%NS+10%SF
CR+2%NS+15%SF

35
30

CR+3%NS+10%SF
CR+3%NS+15%SF

25

CR+2%NS
CR+3%NS

20
15

CR+10%SF
CR+15%SF

10
5

CR

0
1

%Rubber
Fig. 2. Comparison of 7-day compressive strength of specimens

Compressive Strength At
28 Days(M Pa)

70

CR+2%NS+10%SF
CR+2%NS+15%SF

60

CR+3%NS+10%SF
CR+3%NS+15%SF

50
40

CR+2%NS
CR+3%NS

30
20

CR+10%SF
CR+15%SF

10

CR

0
1

%Rubber
Fig. 3. Comparison of 28-day compressive strength of specimens

SEM images of the plain concrete, the rubber containing

specimen, silica fume and nano silica containing concretes are
shown in Fig 4. According to figure 3c, the rubber appears as a
hole between the cement paste and creates a weak bond with
cement mortar. As can be seen, the rubber serves as a barrier
and can suppress the initial crack growth. Figs. 4b and 4d
show that the samples containing silica fume and nano silica,
respectively, have more compact and more homogenous
structure than the plain concrete (Fig 4a). The size and the
amount of microstructural holes in samples containing silica
fume and nano silica are much less than the plain concrete.
The uniformity and homogeneity of the concrete texture in
these specimens is indicative of the positive effect of these
pozzolanic materials on the concrete structure. As a result, it is
possible to improve the compressive strength of the concrete
containing crumb rubber by addition of these materials.
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Fig. 4. (a) plain concrete

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V. CONCLUSION
The 7- day and 28- day compressive strength of the
specimens increased by addition of silica fume to concrete
containing crumb rubber. This happens because of filling
capability of silica fume fine particles as well as good adhesion
between the rubber and the cement paste.
Addition of 2 and 3% nano silica to rubber-containing
specimens results in the increase of 7- day and 28- day
compressive strength in comparison with those which only
contain crumb rubber. The reason of this increase is that nano
materials can fill the nano voids and provide a denser
structure, thus compensate the negative effect of crumb rubber
on the compressive strength.
Addition of silica fume and nano silica had not a significant
effect on the 7- day strength, while the 28- day strength
increased relatively.
Compressive strength increment of rubber-containing
concrete in the presence of silica fume was higher than nano
silica and their mixtures.
The slump decrease in concrete mixes containing nano silica
was higher than those containing silica fumes.
Addition of rubber to concrete resulted in a more ductile
failure. This behavior indicates that these types of concretes
have higher strength and better energy adsorption capability.

Fig. 4. (b) concrete containing silica fume

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[1]

Fig. 4. (c) concrete Nano silica

Fig. 4. (d) concrete containing crumb rubber

Fig. 4. SEM images of various types of concrete specimens

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