Tire chips reinforced foundation as liquefaction countermeasure of residential building

To prevent vibration-induced and liquefaction-induced damage of residential buildings during earthquakes, a low cost technique has been developed and described here, which utilizes tire chips mixed gravel as horizontal reinforcing inclusion under the foundation of residential house. The horizontal reinforcing inclusion refers to a layer made of tire chips and gravel, which is placed horizontally beneath the foundation. Mixture of gravel and tire chips layers provides sufficient bearing capacity to the foundation. In this research, a series of small scale 1g model shaking table tests were performed to evaluate effectiveness of the technique. In addition, cyclic undrained triaxial test were performed to evaluate the liquefaction susceptibility of tire chips-gravel mixtures. Results of model tests indicate that when the thickness of reinforced layer is 10 cm (2 m in prototype) and gravel fraction (percentage of gravel in the mixture) is 50%, the technique yields the best performance. The element tests also indicated that gravel fraction plays an important role. 50%-60% is the best mixing percentage, in which the rise of excess pore water pressure could be significantly restrained without compromising the stiffness of the reinforcing inclusion.