Flexural behavior of steel/GFRP reinforced concrete beams having layered sections integrated with normal and rubberized concrete

Rubberized concrete (RuC) is one of the possible sustainable solutions to the problem of quickly disposing of old tires. This study introduced a new coating material (metakaolin, MK) for crumb rubber (CR) at a controlled temperature to avoid decreasing the RuC mechanical properties. Additionally, to prevent the possible reduction in the RuC strength on the RC beam behavior, the functionally graded material (FGM) approach was applied (layered beam section with RuC at 67 % of the beam section and normal concrete (NC) at the top one). The influence of RC beams on the tensile reinforcement (glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) instead of steel) was also examined. The experimental investigation comprised several concrete combinations: conventional concrete and RuC integrated uncoated and MK-coated CR replacing sand with percentages (0 %, 5 %, 15 %, and 25 %). The mechanical characteristics of concrete mixtures under compression and splitting tension tests were examined. Moreover, fourteen RC beams were experimentally loaded in flexural to investigate the impact of proposed parameters on the beam response. Following that, Finite Element (FE) modeling was carried out to examine the influence of the additional parameters on the RC beams' performance. The results demonstrate a notable improvement in the compressive strength of concrete by 17.4 % and a 25.4 % rise in split tensile strength due to the use of MK-coated CR compared to the uncoated CR. The impact of MK-created CR was more prominent in increasing the GFRP RC beam loads than the steel RC ones. In addition, using the FGM approach could eliminate the CR effect and exhibit nearly the same NC beam load.