Sustainable Utilization of Foundry Waste: Cracking Property Analysis of Basalt Fiber-Reinforced Rubber Concrete
Yafeng Gong, Jiaxiang Song, Yu-Wei Zhang, Teng Jiang
Abstract
In order to overcome the disadvantage of poor mechanical properties and limited application of rubber concrete, basalt fiber was used to reinforce rubber concrete and prepare a new concrete composite material. The axial compression test and acoustic emission test were performed to verify the advantage of basalt fiber-reinforced rubber concrete in anticracking ability. The purpose of this paper is to further expand the application of rubber concrete in civil engineering, so that waste rubber products could be more sustainable utilization for protecting the ecological environment. The results revealed that as the content of rubber reached 10% and the content of basalt fiber was 4.56 kg/m3, the toughness of basalt fiber-reinforced rubber concrete increased by more than 25%. The addition of basalt fiber made the shear cracks in rubber concrete change to tensile cracks, which improved the cracking resistance of the concrete. In the failure stage of basalt fiber-reinforced rubber concrete, the energy release rate decreased, and compared with rubber concrete, the proportion of tensile cracks during the cracking process of basalt fiber-reinforced rubber concrete was significantly reduced.