A Comparative Study of the Influence of Rubber Particle Size on the Ductility of Cement Concrete Based on Energy's Dissipation Method

International audienceThis research work aims to study the feasibility of a cement concrete incorporating rubber particles while respecting its fundamental properties, namely controlled air entrainment and concrete workability, with mechanical strengths sufficiently high to ensure the bearing capacity of the pavement structure. The main challenge is to combine all these conditions to comply with the technical requirements of pavement structure design, and this without any particular treatment of rubber particles to modify the characteristics of the cement concrete, thus inducing a real gain both on economically and ecologically. To do this, two concrete mixtures were prepared and compared: Concrete with a crumb rubber aggregate (CCRA) and concrete with ground tire rubber (CGTR). The experimentation results showed that CCRA is less efficient than CGTR. Nevertheless, despite a significant reduction in mechanical strength, both materials can satisfy the basic properties required for their use in pavement design. The results also highlighted the positive effect of rubber in improving the ductility of both concretes through an analysis of the hysteresis loops. However, due to its better compactness, CGTR has better mechanical properties than CCRA. \textcopyright International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development