ORIGINAL PAPER Mechanical Behavior of Waste Tire Crumbs–Sand Mixtures Determined by Triaxial Tests Reza Noorzad . Masoud Raveshi Received: 5 November 2014 / Accepted: 10 March 2017 Ó Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 Abstract In the last three decades, the use of scrap tires in a number of forms such as whole tires, shredded, chips, ground tire or powder tire shapes has already been common in many geotechnical applica- tions. One of the main reasons of using shredded tires is the fact that it is cost-effective and environmental concerns. While, scrap tire improves sand behavior; so, it is suitable to transform tire to shredded for using in many industrial applications. In this research, in order to investigate the behavior of the tire-sand mixtures (small tire crumbs), drained triaxial tests have been performed. Effects of parameters such as size of tires, tire content (by weight) and confining pressure on the sand’s behavior have been studied. For achieving this objective, two sets of tire (granulate and powder tire), four various tire contents (5, 10, 20 and 30%) and three confining pressures (50, 100 and 200 kPa) have been employed. The test results showed that unlike some previous studies in which tire crumbs act as reinforcement and increase shear strength of sand–tire mixtures, shear strength mixtures have been found to decrease with the increase in the amount of tire crumbs. This study concentrates on the stress– strain and volumetric strain behavior of the tire-sand mixtures. Moreover, the angle of friction, cohesion and elastic modulus for each mixture are presented. Keywords Scrap tire Á Triaxial test Á Shear strength Á Stress–strain behavior Á Volumetric strain 1 Introduction Solid waste management is one of the main environ- mental concerns around the world. The increasing population leads to an increment in the amount of scrap tire annually. Commonly worn tires are accu- mulated in uncontrolled ways, and released into the environment. Stockpiling of scrap tires provides a favorable environment for the spread of flies and mice. On the other hand, there is the likelihood that the fire has a negative impact on the atmosphere and human health. Due to impossibility of waste tires decompo- sition, engineers should make good ideas to recycle or reuse them (Edil and Bosscher 1994). In Iran, accord- ing to the Ministry of Industries and Mines report, 21% (by weight) of scrap tires generated were recovered in 2006 (Ministry of Industries and Mines 2006). Waste tire can be reused as raw material in rubber product, or fuel for energy production and civil engineering applications (Lee et al. 1999). From geotechnical engineering perspective, waste tires have interesting properties. Scrap tires have low density, high strength (especially when steel belted), low thermal conductivity, low cost, excellent durabil- ity, resilience and high frictional strength. It is due to these properties that the use of scrap tire aggregates R. Noorzad (&) Á M. Raveshi Civil Engineering Department, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Babol, Iran e-mail: rn0864@gmail.com 123 Geotech Geol Eng DOI 10.1007/s10706-017-0209-9