Re-use of steel cord from tyres as reinforcement in sustainable construction

Approximately 1.5 billion new tyres are manufactured around the world every year from over 10 million tonnes of rubber and high quality steel cord reinforcement . About 5% of this raw material is currently wasted during manufacture and is disposed of by incineration or in landfill. A new process has recently been developed to separate the un-vulcanised rubber from the steel cord enabling both components to be recovered and re-used . This project focuses on developing new high value applications for the steel cord recovered from this process by using it as fibre reinforcement in heavily loaded concrete structures such as industrial floor slabs and tunnel linings. For this to be achieved, research is first required in to refining the recovery process, automatically cutting the cord in to predefined lengths and integrating it in to fresh concrete especialy designed for placement by either wet casting, pumping or spraying. Giving waste steel cord a second life as reinforcement in concrete only requires about 4% of the energy needed to manufacture new steel fibre reinforcement thereby making a significant contribution to improving the sustainability of the construction industry.