Behavior of Steel Furnace Slag, Coal Wash, and Rubber Crumb Mixtures with Special Relevance to Stress-Dilatancy Relation

The influence of rubber crumbs on the dilatancy behavior and critical state of steel furnace slag (SFS), coal wash (CW), and rubber crumbs (RC) mixtures was investigated via a series of monotonic drained triaxial tests. These tests revealed that RC contents (Rb, %) have a significant influence on the dilatancy behavior and critical state of the aforementioned waste mixtures; in fact, as more Rb is added, dilatancy and the slope of the critical state line in e−ln p′ space decreases. Within the framework of critical state soil mechanics, a dilatancy model for SFS+CW+RC mixtures was proposed and validated using experimental data. This model also captured the energy-absorbing property of RC using an empirical relationship between the total work input Wtotal and the critical stress ratio Mcs.