Whole tyres
End-of-life tyres can mainly be used whole in the fields of energy recovery or public works.
Tyres have some qualities to be used in public works for structural applications: no contamination, no soiling, and structural rigidity (integrity). It is possible to cut the tyre flanks for some applications.
Currently, the use of whole tyres in public works are a marginal output for used tyre recovery (1.6% in France in 2015).
Possible applications
- Retaining walls
- Shock absorbing walls
- Quarries
Some cements works can use direcly whole tires as a replacement fuel.
The historical presence of abandonned tyre stockpiles of end-of-life tyres have inspired a lot of different applications. For the moment, they remain artisanal but they are inspiring. The main obstacle to industrialization would be the diversity of sizes (radius and width) that occurs in tyres.
- Earthship (individual house walls)
- Objects (swing seat...)
- Funders on boats
Yokohamafender by BoH on Wikipedia CC-BY-SA 3.0
Since 2010, Aliapur has chosen to limit its supply of whole tyres to the public works sector to two types of use:
- filling, a use reserved for tyres with a diameter of more than 1.40 m or for tyres that cannot be shredded for structural reasons;
- applications derived from the Pneusol technique, developed by the engineers from the French engineering school, Ponts et Chaussées.
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