Evaluation of the effect of silica fume on the fresh, mechanical and durability properties of self-compacting concrete produced by using waste rubber as fine aggregate

The supply of sand, which is obtained by disposing of natural resources for the purpose of concrete production and in accordance with production standards, is increasing rapidly and therefore its amount is rapidly depleted. A study is presented that aims to reduce the aggregate content by using this waste tire aggregate (WTA) in the construction industry, and thus, a sustainable production and conservation of nature is the basis. The water/binder ratio used in the study is kept constant as 0.39 and the binder dosage as 550 kg/m3. WTA and SF are replaced with sand and cement at the ratios of 5%, 10% and 15% by volume, and 5% and %15 b y weight, respectively. The fresh (slump flow, V-funnel, and L-box) and hardened (axial compression, splitting tensile strength, flexural tensile strength, diagonal tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity, chlorine penetration and sorptivity) properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC) mixtures produced in this way are evaluated. For the mechanical and durability tests, a total of approximately 500 SCC (100 × 100 × 500 mm: prism, 100 × 100 × 100 mm: cube and 100 × 200 mm: cylindrical) samples are produced. The mechanical experiments of SCC were carried out at 28-, 56- and 90-days age. The test results have shown that WTA substitute concrete, which can be used in terms of civil engineering in terms of all these features, has shown that it has sufficient performance.