Concrete plates made with fiber-reinforced concrete containing end-of-life rubber

The results of an experimental campaign, performed on plates in three point bending and made with concrete containing scrap-tire rubber, are described and analyzed in the present paper. The aim is to tailor, through tests on full-scale structures, a new lightweight composite having, as much as possible, the mechanical performances of the traditional lightweight concrete. Due to the use of recycled rubber as an aggregate, the proposed concrete shows an environmental impact smaller than traditional lightweight concrete containing expanded clay aggregates. Moreover, to obtain a ductile behavior in bending, as in lightly reinforced concrete beams, but without the presence of steel rebars, polymeric fibers have been added to the new cementitious matrix. In this case, the minimum amount of fibers is defined by means of the ductility criteria already adopted for the minimum reinforcement ratio in reinforced concrete beams. The proposed tailor-made concrete has been used to rebuild the sidewalks of a famous bridge in the northern Italy.