USING TIRE DERIVED AGGREGATES BACKFILLING ALTERNATIVES FOR RETAINING WALL STRUCTURES

Abstract

Tire derived aggregate (TDA) is a lightweight material suitable to replace conventional fill material in embankments and retaining walls. This paper focuses on using TDA as a backfill for retaining wall. A PLAXIS 2D finite element model has been developed to investigate the effect of TDA as a backfill material for retaining wall and earth pressure against the wall was computed, which was verified against the field measurements. Furthermore, parametric studies were conducted to examine the earth pressure on retaining wall at different backfill slope angles, and subcases were considered by varying the width of backfill TDA layer in each case of slope angle. The study showed that varying the backfill slope angle have only negligible effect on the results. It was also found that increasing the width of backfill TDA layer slightly reduces the earth pressure on the retaining wall.