experimental study on the effect of waste rubber powder and zeolite replacement on cemented sandy soil

Soil improvement involves a variety of approaches. among them, the addition of specific materials has been widely adopted in the literature. colossal numbers of worn tires are released into the environment every year. it will cause serious environmental issues. moreover, the cement production process causes detrimental consequences for the environment, but it still is considered as one of the main options in construction projects. so, the main purpose of this research is to find suitable alternative methods to decrease cement usage. in this paper, the effect of adding zeolite and waste rubber powder on the unconfined compression strength (ucs) of soil was investigated. two types of sandy soil were adopted in this study, sp and sw soil. in order to improve these two types of soils, 4% by weight cement, 0, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75% rubber powder, and 0, 10, 30, and 50% zeolite replacement with the cement during curing periods of 7, 14, and 28 days were considered. according to the compaction test results, by increasing the percentage of rubber powder, the maximum dry density and the optimal moisture content of both types of soils decreases. however, with zeolite addition, the maximum dry density of both types of soils has decreased and the value of optimum moisture has increased. the optimum percentage of zeolite and rubber powder in sw soil was 30% and 0.5% respectively, while in sp soil these amounts were 10% and 0.25% respectively.