Abstract
This work consists in highlighting the influence of granulates rubber on the shear strength of sand. It deals with the study of sand-rubber mixtures and in particular saturation and mechanical properties. In order to study the influence of granulate rubber content on the mechanical properties of sand, direct shear tests were performed. The shear results show that the strength of the sand in the dry or saturated state increases with increasing rubber content. A rubber granulate content of 20% is the optimum value for improving the mechanical behavior of sand in dry and saturated conditions. This work also compares the shear results obtained for a dry and saturated sample under various normal stresses (100, 200, and 400 kPa). Increasing the normal stress improves the shear strength of pure sand in both dry and saturated states. A reduction in the maximum shear strength is observed in the saturated condition compared to the dry condition for the same relative density (D r = 55%).