Waste rubber aggregates

Currently, there is an increasing need to incorporate recycled materials, such as rubber, in building materials in order to meet sustainability issues. The use of waste rubber in cement-based materials such as mortar and concrete avoids landfilling and decreases virgin raw materials’ consumption. Waste rubber can be used as a partial replacement of fine aggregate, coarse aggregate or both aggregate fractions. This chapter presents an overview of the research carried out on the use of waste rubber as partial (or full) virgin sand replacement in conventional cement-based mixes, in which the binder is ordinary Portland cement. The effects of rubber waste addition on fresh properties (i.e., workability, setting time, bleeding and segregation, density) as well as on hardened properties (mainly mechanical strength, toughness, ductility, shrinkage, freeze/thaw resistance, fire resistance, thermal insulation, corrosion resistance, resistance to aggressive environmental and sound absorption) of rubberised cement-based materials were reviewed.