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Waste tyre-derived products (TDP) are used in some engineering applications and thereby reduce the potential impact on the environment, for example, as lightweight materials in geotechnical engineering projects. One of TDPs is the baling of whole waste tyres to produce rectilinear, lightweight, permeable bales of high bale-to-bale or bale-to-soil friction. The use of lightweight tyre bales in road construction has the potential to satisfy the demand for low-cost materials exhibiting such a beneficial property. This paper presents a laboratory study on the mechanical properties of tyre bales. The laboratory tests included measurement and evaluation of full-scale tyre bales to determine basic values for the geometry and unit weight, compressibility characteristics of tyre bales, including Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio, shear strength along the tyre–tyre and tyre–soil surfaces, creep and stiffness degradation under cyclic load. The respective test procedures and results of these tests are presented in the paper. The paper provides the mechanical properties of tyre bales required for geotechnical projects, as follows: the unit weight—0.515 Mg/m3, the Young’s modulus—826 kPa, the Poison’s ratio—0.11, the dry tyre–tyre interface: cohesion of 0.03 kPa and friction angle of 46.0°, the wet tyre–soil interface: cohesion 0.77 kPa and a friction angle of 29.6°, creep deformation of 6.1% of the average height of the bale, and no stiffness degradation of tyre bales under cyclic load. These results could be directly applied for the designing and construction of the tyre-baled structures.

Lean cemented sand and gravel (LCSG) materials are subjected to unloading-loading when an LCSG dam is opened for water drainage and then refilled or a roadbed base is subjected to repeated wheel loads. To investigate the behavior of the LCSG materials under loading-unloading, previous studies utilized the complete loading triaxial test. In contrast, in this study, the consolidated drained triaxial tests in the unloading and reloading paths for materials with cementing agent contents of 60 and 100 kg/m3 under different confining pressures, for which each curve generates three loading-unloading cycles, were applied to investigate the unloading and reloading mechanical behavior. Experimental results indicated that the unloading and reloading behavior of the LCSG materials produced stress-strain curves exhibiting a crescent-shaped hysteresis loop, which differs from that exhibited by coarse-grained soil. Although the shape of the crescent-like hysteresis loop was preserved as stress levels increasing, it gradually expanded. Compared with that of the typical triaxial test, the cohesive force and the increasing internal friction angle increased. Further, as the confining pressure increased, the crescent-like hysteresis loops tapered, shear strength increased linearly, and the modulus of resilience increased nonlinearly; the latter’s rate of change, however, decreased. The change in volumetric strain was small during unloading as the stress level changed.

Rocks are formed from particles and the interaction between those particles controls the behaviour of a rock’s mechanical properties. Since it is very important to conduct extensive studies about the relationship between the micro-parameters and macro-parameters of rock, this paper investigates the effects of some micro-parameters on strength properties and the behaviour of cracks in rock. This is carried out by using numerical simulation of an extensive series of Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) and Brazilian Tensile Strength (BTS) tests. The micro-parameters included the particles’ contact modulus, the contact stiff ness ratio, bond cohesion, bond tensile strength, the friction coefficient and the friction angle, and the mechanical properties of chromite rock have been considered as base values of the investigation. Based on the obtained results, it was found that the most important micro-parameters on the behaviour of rock in the compressive state are bond cohesion, bond tensile strength, and the friction coefficient. Also, the bond tensile strength showed the largest effect under tensile conditions. The micro-parameter of bond tensile strength increased the rock tensile strength (up to 5 times), minimized destructive cracks and increased the corresponding strain (almost 2.5 times) during critical stress., Svaka je stijena stvorena od čestica čijim se međudjelovanjem određuju njezina mehanička svojstva. Budući da je vrlo važno provesti opsežne studije o povezanosti mikroparametara i makroparametara stijene, u ovome su radu istraživani učinci nekih mikroparametara na svojstva čvrstoće i ponašanje pukotina stijene numeričkim simulacijama jednoosne tlačne čvrstoće (UCS) i brazilske vlačne čvrstoće (BTS). Ispitivani mikroparametri uključivali su kontakt čestica, omjer kontaktne krutosti, koheziju veze, vlačnu čvrstoću, koeficijent trenja i kut trenja, a mehanička svojstva stijene bogate kromitom bile su osnovne vrijednosti ispitivanih mikroparametara. Utvrđeno je kako su najvažniji mikroparametri na ponašanje stijene kod tlačenja kohezija veze, vlačna čvrstoća veze i koeficijent trenja. Također, vlačna čvrstoća ima najveći učinak u vlačnim uvjetima. Ovaj mikroparametar povećava vlačnu čvrstoću (do 5 puta), minimalizira destruktivne pukotine i povećava odgovarajuće naprezanje (gotovo 2,5 puta) pri kritičnome naprezanju.

The commonly adopted rock mass classifications, namely RMR, Q and GSI, are used to estimate compressive strength and modulus of rock masses. These values have been examined as per modulus ratio concept, M (rj) , for their reliability. The design parameters adopted in some of the recent case studies based on these classifications indicate that the M (rj) values for rock masses are higher than those of the corresponding intact rocks. The joint factor, J (f), which is defined as a weakness coefficient in rock mass suggests that modulus ratio of rock mass (M (rj) ) has to be less than the modulus ratio of the corresponding intact rock (M (ri) ), on the basis of extensive experimental evidence. With joint factor, compressive strength, elastic modulus, cohesion and friction angle were estimated and applied in the analyses of a few cases. The predictions of deformations with this approach agreed well with the field measurements by adapting equivalent continuum approach. The modulus ratio concept is considered to present a unified classification for intact rocks and rock masses. Soil-rock boundary, standup time in under ground excavations and also penetration rate of TBM estimates have been linked to M (rj) .