Pullout Response of Uniaxial Geogrid in Tire Shred–Sand Mixtures

Use of tire shred–soil mixtures as backfill materials in mechanically stabilized earth walls has several advantages over other backfill materials: (1) good drainage, (2) high shear strength, and (3) low compacted unit weight. This paper presents the results of laboratory pullout tests performed on uniaxial geogrid embedded in tire shred–sand mixtures. The effects of tire shred size, tire shred–sand mixing ratio and confining pressure on the interaction between the geogrid and tire shred–sand mixtures are evaluated. Three sizes of tire shreds are considered: tire chips (with 9.5 mm nominal size), tire shreds 50-to-100 mm long and tire shreds 100-to-200 mm in length, with mixing ratios of 0, 12, 25 and 100 % of tire shreds in the mixtures (by weight). Based on compaction testing of a number of mixtures, the optimal mixing proportion of tire shreds and sand was found to lie between 25/75 and 30/70 (by weight of tire shred and sand); this is equivalent to approximately 40/60 and 50/50, respectively, by volume of tire shreds and sand. The pullout resistance of a geogrid embedded in tire shred–sand mixtures is significantly higher than that of the same geogrid embedded in tire shreds only. The size of the tire shreds has negligible effect on the pullout resistance of a geogrid embedded in mixtures prepared with either low (12/88 mix) or high (100/0 mix) tire shred content. However, when the 25/75 mixture is used, greater geogrid pullout resistance was obtained for the geogrid embedded in tire chip–sand mixtures than in tire shred–sand mixtures.