About 20 billion square feet of Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer (EPDM) rubber is\ninstalled on roofs in the United States and most of them will be reaching the end of their lifespan soon.\nThe purpose of this study is to investigate potential reuses of this rubber in Civil Engineering projects\nrather than disposing it into landfills. First, laboratory tests were performed on various shredded\nrubber-sand mixtures to quantify the basic geotechnical engineering properties. The laboratory test\nresults show that the shredded rubber-sand mixture is lightweight with good drainage properties\nand has shear strength parameters comparable to sand. This indicates that the rubber-sand mixture\nhas potential to be used for retaining wall backfill and many other projects. To assess the economic\nadvantage of using shredded rubber-sand mixtures as a lightweight backfill for retaining walls\nsubjected to static and earthquake loadings, geotechnical designs of a 6 m tall gravity cantilever\nretaining wall were performed. The computed volume of concrete to build the structural components\nand volume of backfill material were compared with those of conventional sand backfill. Results show\nsignificant reductions in the volume of concrete and backfill material in both static and earthquake\nloading conditions when the portion of shredded rubber increased in the mixture.
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