Experimental Study of Waste Tire-Reinforced Sand Slope

In recent years, scraped tires have become an environmental and economic problem. Reusing waste tires for reinforcing slope can be a suitable solution for the disposal and reduction of the number of scrap tires. In this paper, a series of experimental model tests have been carried out to investigate the behavior of horizontal elements of waste tire (HEWT) in stabilizing sandy slopes. Digital images taken of the side of the model during incremental loading and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were used to investigate the slope under surcharge loading. Some important parameters such as the length, number, and location of the reinforcing tire layers were studied in this paper. There is an obvious plastic zone on the unreinforced and reinforced sandy slope shown using PIV. It shows that scrap type reinforcement highly improved the strength of the sandy slopes model resulting in bearing capacity about 3.5 times higher and settlement about 3 times lower in comparison with the unreinforced sandy slope.