Performance and benefits of tire rubber as substitute aggregates in the construction of concrete dams

ABSTRACT This paper presents the performance and benefits of tyre rubber as substitute aggregates in the construction of concrete dams. The use of tyre rubber aims at minimising the quantities of traditional aggregate materials, and contributes in mitigating the solid waste problem in Lebanon. Full scale experiments and analyses were performed using data of Janna Dam (Lebanon). A first set of simulations related to structural and seismic analysis were carried out for concrete dams using traditional aggregate mixture to define a reference dam design scenario. A second set of simulations were proposed using tyre rubber aggregates to define a second scenario for the construction of the concrete dam. A comparison between the two scenarios shows that the introduction of tyre rubber as aggregates in the concrete mixture for the construction of the dam showed its performance and provides benefits in terms of reduction of traditional aggregates volume and of random disposal of tyre in the nature.