Innovative Application of Tire-Derived Aggregate around Corrugated Steel Plate Culverts

Abstract

In this paper, a new application of tire-derived aggregate (TDA) backfill around corrugated steel plate (CSP) pipe culverts is proposed and its feasibility is explored experimentally and numerically. Pressure distribution around buried structures depends on the relative stiffness of the structure and the surrounding backfill material. Accordingly, earth pressure around buried culverts can be reduced by installing a layer of compressible material such as TDA above the culverts, developing a positive arching mechanism, causing the earth pressure above the culverts to be less than the theoretical value of the weight of the soil prism above them. Four full-scale tests were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of using a layer of TDA material in different backfill envelope configurations around 600-mm CSP culverts. In addition, three-dimensional (3D) finite-element models of the tests were developed and verified against the experimental results to study the interaction mechanisms in the considered problem. An intensive parametric study was also conducted to examine the effect of the TDA backfill envelope configuration around the culvert, the influence of the stiffness of the top granular backfill, the performance of the proposed system beneath rigid pavement, the effect of the culvert burial depth, and the performance of the proposed system under embankment loads. The results show that the proposed system can be effectively used to decrease culvert stresses and deformations.