Cristina Maria Vieira Frazão

Cementitious Composites Reinforced with Recycled Fibres

Pneumatic tyres are nowadays among the most widespread industrial products and, hence, handling tyres that have reached their end-of-life is indeed a critical issue. This Chapter provides readers with the key facts about tyre production and consumption. Particularly, it describes the raw materials which they are made from, and summarises the main classifications currently accepted worldwide. The typical product life-cycle is shortly outlined before analysing the possibility of recycling waste tyres for producing new products. Relevant properties of concrete reinforced with recycled fibres are presented, with special focus on the post-cracking behaviour of these composite materials. Emphasis is given to the suitability of using recycled fibres obtained from waste tyres as partial or total replacement of industrial steel fibres for obtaining fibre reinforced concrete.