From waste to resource: predictive modeling and environmental assessment of rubber–plastic substituted self-compacting concrete

This project is aimed at determining the potential of Recycled Rubber (RR) and Recycled Plastic (RP) used as hybrid sand replacements in Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC). It seeks to refine an integrated formulation and prediction model construction approach which uses Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) modeling with k-fold cross-validation. Experimental findings suggest that the addition of RR generally lowers workability, and at certain above average substitution levels, high RR levels (10-20%) can even optimize mix-design. On the contrary, RP substitution or workability appears to be the least affected across the three ranges. The addition of RP to an SCC formulation increases the segregation resistance (improving the sieve

stability up to 7%), while the addition of RR decreases sieve stability by about 8-10%. At 28 days the Compressive Strength (CS) is significantly reduced with greater RR content (30% replacement of RR results in a 25-30% decrease) compared to RP which is a more moderate 10-15% decrease. This waste material has different mechanical properties which are of paramount importance in the construction industry. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results indicate that the two substitutions considered greatly reduce environmental impacts including the potential Climate Change (CC).

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