Effects of tire chips on the shrinkage and cracking characteristics of clayey soils

Abstract

Desiccation can be heavily detrimental and can adversely influence the performance of clayey soils in various engineering applications such as compacted clay barriers in waste containments, dam cores, canal liners, and road pavements. Cracks may affect the compressibility of soil, its rate of consolidation, its strength and the permeability rate, at which water can re-enter the soil. In this study, we attempted to utilize tire monofilaments as the additive material to improve the anti-cracking properties of compacted clay. To characterize crack patterns quantitatively, close-range digital-image-analysis techniques were used to analyze the desiccation generation and propagation. The results show that there is a definite improvement in the cracking characteristics of the clay material when it is mixed with tire monofilaments.