Floor Mat produced from Tire Crumb Rubber and Polystyrene Wastes
DOI: 10.14416/j.ind.tech.2025.04.008
Keywords:
Polystyrene waste, Binder, Tire crumb rubber, Floor mat, Computer aided engineering programAbstract
The objective of this work is to study the feasibility of using the disposal of polystyrene packaging plastic and foam as a binding agent for the floor mats, which is produced from recycled tire crumb rubber to replace commercial-grade binders. The influence of tire crumb rubber/aggregate ratio, binder content, bulk density, and product thickness on compressive strength, impact resistance, and water permeability are the main interesting factors. The preliminary results show that the best mechanical properties of tire crumb rubber floor mat can be obtained by using a crumb rubber/aggregate ratio of 75/25 mixed with 5.0 %V/V binder and the bulk density of floor mat is 0.9 g/cm3. Considering the water permeability, all the tire crumb rubber mat floors produced in this work are water - permeable. In this work, the computer program Autodesk Fusion 360 is utilized to design and analyze the strength of floor mats, and a comparison between the numerical and experimental results is carried out. Moreover, the various designs of rib patterns are examined. Good agreements between numerical and experimental results are found. For design purposes, to gain the highest strength-to-weight ratio, it is suggested that the rib pattern, rib width (W), and rib height (H) are important factors. The success of this work shows the high feasibility of utilizing polystyrene waste as a binding material to reclaim plastic wastes and tire rubbers and to reduce environmental problems.
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