Standard Practice for Use of Scrap Tires in Civil Engineering Applications

This practice is intended for use of scrap tires including tire chips or tire shreds comprised of pieces of scrap tires, tire chip/soil mixtures, tire sidewalls, and whole scarp tires in civil engineering applications. This practice includes the use of tire chips, tire shreds, and tire chip/soil mixtures as lightweight embankment fill, lightweight retaining wall backfill, drainage layers, thermal insulation to limit frost penetration beneath roads, insulating backfill to limit heat loss from buildings, and replacement for soil or rock in other fill applications. Use of whole scrap tires and tire sidewalls includes construction of retaining walls and drainage culverts, as well as use as fill when whole tires have been compressed into bales. It is the responsibility of the design engineer to determine the appropriateness of using scrap tires in a particular application and to select applicable tests and specifications to facilitate construction and environmental protection. This practice is intended to encourage wider utilization of scrap tires in civil engineering applications.

Three tire shred fills with thicknesses in excess of 7 m have experienced a serious heating reaction; however, more than 70 fills with a thickness less than 3 m have been constructed with no evidence of a deleterious heating reaction (1)⁶ . Guidelines have been developed to minimize internal heating of tire shred fills (2) as discussed in 6.10. The guidelines are applicable to fills less than 3 m thick; thus, this practice should be applied only to tire shred fills less than 3 m thick.