Behaviour of Foundation Resting on Soft Clay Subgrade Shredded Tyre Mixture Using Physical Model Tests

This study presents the improvement of soft clay subgrade utilizing shred tyre-sand layer of varying thickness. A series of physical model tests was conducted on different foundation layers consisting of shred tyre-sand layers of varying thickness. The foundation layers were made up of the shredded tyre-sand mattress overlying soft clay bed. The tests were performed at 80% relative density of sand soil with different percentage mixtures of tyre shreds. The thickness of the sand-tyre mixes layer was varied from 0.5D to 1.5D. The bearing capacity of soil was found to be increased by 2.8 times and 1.5 times for the height of shredded tyre-sand layer h = 1.5D and h = 0.5D, respectively. Moreover, it was also observed that the settlement of footing decrease with the addition of reinforcement.