Determination of Shear Strength Parameters of Tire Chips and Grains

Each year large amount of waster tires enter the environment, causing serious problems. Although some of them may be dumped or used in various case forms, a very feasible application of them is in geotechnical projects. For example they may be used as lightweight backfill material behind retaining walls. For such applications, shear strength parameters of tire chips and grains are to be precisely determined. For this purpose, in this paper CD triaxial tests were performed on tire chips and grains. The performed experiments showed that friction angles obtained from tests were consistent with most of research work done on the subject. Also cohesion intercept was also obtained for tire grains. With the shear strength parameters and low unit weights which were obtained for waste tire grains and chips, it is certain that they are lightweight and thus the use of such material as backfill is encouraging. This is also sound since the use of waste tires in engineering projects can reduce environmental impact.