abstra ctThis work presents the main experimental results obtained from the study of plaster test pieces and boards with addition of various volumetric rubber fractions from mechanical grinding of end-of-life tires (ELTs), in three different particle size gradations. It includes a description of the materials employed, and their proportions. The physical and mechanical properties, as well as the thermal conductivity and acous-tic insulation properties are analyzed. Experimental results obtained for specimens with addition of recy-cled rubber are compared with similar ones, carried out on specimens of plaster of identical features without any addition, evaluating the influence of the particle size and mixture proportions. An improve-ment in thermal and acoustic performance has been obtained as well as a reduction in density, and as a result, some constructive applications for paving and slabs in rehabilitation works are proposed.

Regenerated silk fibroin solutions from Bombyx mori were tested for electrospinning. Simple and reproducible tensile tests were performed on threads of aligned fibers to obtain information about their mechanical performance at the fiber level. The binary solvent formic acid/chloroform (10:1, v/v) rendered unbeaded thinner fibers with increased extensibility before failure when compared with pure formic acid. A remarkable improvement in strength was induced by immersing length-restricted fibers into ethanol for 5 min. Conformational changes of the protein chains were studied by solid-state NMR.