Original citation: Ling, T.C., Nor, H.M., Lim, S.K. (2010) Using recycled tyres in concrete paving blocks.

Proceedings of the ICE- Waste and Resources Management; 163 (1): 37-45. http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/content/article/10.1680/warm.2010.163.1.37

Using recycled waste tyre in concrete paving blocks

T. C. Ling*, H. M. Nor, S. K. Lim

Abstract There is general agreement amongst stakeholders that waste tyres should be better managed both to preserve valuable resources and to prevent environmental damage due to improper disposal. The objective of this study is to promote a practical use and acceptance of disposing crumb rubber in concrete paving blocks (CPB) by end user. Existing CPB is characterized as a composite material with high compressive strength but with a low toughness. By adding rubber into CPB, the toughness is improved while meeting minimum strength requirements. A total of 4300 rubberized concrete paving blocks (RCPB) were produced in a commercial plant, and 348 RCPB were tested for compression and abrasion performance as prescribed by the Concrete Masonry Association of Australia (CMAA). In addition, sound absorption, voids and skid resistance were tested in accordance to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The tests results revealed that the rubber substitution should not exceed 20 % by sand volume, which caused excessive reductions in compressive strength. Further investigations showed that sound absorption and toughness was improved as the rubber content in the mix increased. The RCPB specimens had a significant capability in absorbing dynamic loading and in resisting crack propagation. Such behaviour may be beneficial for pavements that require good impact resistance properties. Keywords: Materials technology/ Recycling of materials/ Strength and testing of materials 1. Introduction Industrial by-products that would otherwise be discarded as harmful environment pollutants are being widely used as cement or aggregate replacement in concrete. For both environmental and economic considerations, industrial by-products or solid wastes are fast becoming vital sources for aggregate replacement in concrete. Therefore, there are increasing demands in finding a possibility of recycling and applying the waste materials from construction industry into civil engineering application. One of the examples is by using industry by-products and solids wastes in highway construction. In some Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Japan and Thailand, waste management has become an acute problem as urbanization process and economic development increase rapidly, leading to larger quantities of waste materials requiring proper management. Most of the time, the disposal of solid waste is done solely through landfill. With regard to that, waste minimization, reuse, material recycling, and energy recovery are encouraged instead of disposal through landfills. In order to promote such initiatives, a number of research studies were conducted in these countries in the area of utilizing industrial by-products or solid wastes in concrete paving block (CPB) production. In Hong Kong, the construction industry generates very large amount of solid wastes such as crushed clay brick, crushed ceramic tile, crushed waste glass, wood chips, etc.

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Numerous studies on the applications of construction and demolition (C&D) wastes as fine and coarse aggregates material are available (Poon et al., 2002, Poon & Chan, 2006, Poon & Cheung, 2007, Poon & Chan, 2007, Lam et al., 2007, Chan & Poon, 2006), which demonstrated the possibility of utilizing huge amounts of C&D in concrete. The use of recycled aggregates in CPB production has been successfully implemented and is gaining wider acceptance. The environment benefits from the reduction of solid waste disposal in landfills, in addition to that, the utilization of such solid waste also helps in preserving the natural materials that would otherwise have been used in concrete production. In recent years in Japan, the amount of coal ash produced by power plants has reached about 27,000 tons daily (Karasawa et al., 2003). It is reported that the fly ash can be used as a substitution for fine aggregate in the production of CPB. However, utilization of fly ash can be accepted only when it meets the production target value with fly ash replacement ratio of 25 %. Some researchers had cited a large amount of literature on the applications of fly ash in CPB (Phinyocheep, 1998, Nutalaya, 1994). It is estimated that about 45,000 tons of fly ash lignite at Mae-Moh Power Plant is consumed daily for the generation of a 2,025 MW power plant in Thailand. Apart from fly ash, peanut shell ash and rice husk ash can be used as partial replacement for cement in CPB production. Due to the issue of waste disposal and environmental effect, the idea to utilize the fly ash is raised in the production of low-cost CPB. Moreover, it will be helpful to the people who live in the vicinity of the power plant and meet the demand of low income in rural areas. 2. Research background One of the most common environmental issues in the contemporary world is related to the management they are of pneumatic tyre, which is not readily biodegradable. Every year, approximately 800 million new tyres are produced in every region of the world, in various sizes and types (Serumagard, 1999). Although the lifetime of some tyres are prolonged, but ultimately they will be discarded as waste materials. Majority of such tyres will end up in the already congested landfill or they become mosquito breeding places and give the worst effects when burnt. The melting tyres also produced large quantities of oil, which will contribute to the contamination of soil and ground water. Recent statistics in Malaysia indicated that there is an increase of more than 100 % in the number of registered vehicles within these ten years. The current thirteen million vehicles are producing a large number of scrap tyres. Therefore, the Department of Environmental has put a stop to the open burning and burying of waste tyres as they will cause air pollution and land instability. Even though several agencies and municipal councils are involved in waste management, they often have no clear direction in relation to waste management. Only a few companies take the shredding process further by producing crumb rubber and rubber powder. The cost of crumb rubber is about RM 1000 (1 US dollar = RM 3.5) per ton. Therefore, as an engineer and researcher, there is a need to seek and identify economic and environmental friendly methods to manage these tyres in different civil engineering applications. For the last 20 years, introduction of scrap tyres rubber into asphalt concrete pavement has solved the problem of waste tyres. Several investigations showed that strength and compressibility of shredded tyres in concrete form can be engineered to meet the requirements by increasing the cement content. On the other hand, owing to the unique characteristic of tyre (rubber), it is expected that by adding crumb rubber into concrete mixture, it can increase the toughness (energy absorption capacity) of concrete considerably (Toutanji, 1996, Naik & Siddique, 2004, Li, et al., 2004, Hermandez-olivares et al., 2002, Ling

and Nor, 2007). However, the initial cost of rubberized asphalt is 40 to 100 % higher than that of conventional asphalt, moreover, its long term benefits are uncertain (Fedroff et al., 1996). Limited laboratory tests results have shown that the incorporation of waste tyre rubber (crumb rubber) in concrete pedestrian block, reduces the weight and considerably increases toughness and skid resistance (Sukonrasukkul & Chaikaew, 2006). However, such combination causes less abrasion resistant and is not as strong as the conventional block. Hence, the blocks produced are considered not applicable for trafficked pavement. To resolve these problems (low strength and slow production by hand-pressed method), various means are attempted to improve the strength and to reduce tyre wastes in a massive quantity. This study is aimed to promote a practical use and acceptance of using crumb rubber in CPB by potential end users. Therefore, an investigation of manufacturing processes and feasibility of producing CPB incorporating crumb rubber in a commercial plant setting is carried out. In addition to that, the CPB quality and strength are expected to be improved by using specialised manufacturing equipment (under vibration and extreme pressure) based on formulations developed in laboratory trials (Ling et al., 2009). 3. Experimental details 3.1. Materials The rubber granules named crumb rubber used in this study were recycled from discarded car tyre as shown in Fig. 1. Crumb rubber is a fine material and is produced by mechanical shredding with the gradation close to that of sand (Fig. 2). Two particle sizes of crumb rubber: 1 3 mm and 1 5 mm were used as a partial substitute for fine sand and coarse sand in facing layer and body layer, respectively in the production of CPB. All the particle sizes of crumb rubber passed BS sieve no. 4 (4.75 mm). Other concreting materials such as cement, sand, aggregates, additive (Rheobuild 1000 superplasticizer) and full-scale facilities of factory plant machine were supplied by a commercial plant. The physical and mechanical properties of both sand and aggregate are given in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. All materials used in this study are commercially available in Malaysia.

Fig. 1. Waste car tyre being left at landfill

Fig. 2. Crumb rubber

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Table 1. Physical and mechanical properties of fine and coarse sand Property Passing 10mm (%) Passing 5mm (%) Flakiness index T1 & T2 86.2 16.2 17.1 T3 & T4 98.2 12.4 22.1

Note: Fine sand used for facing layer; coarse sand used for body layer. Table 2. Physical and mechanical properties of aggregate T1 & T2 Fine sand 5.6 5.2 1.8 Coarse sand 5.7 8.5 3.0 Fine sand 5.6 5.2 1.8 T3 & T4 Coarse sand 7.6 9.0 2.9

Property Silt content (%) Moisture content (%) Fineness modulus

3.2. Mix proportioning The control CPB mix proportion of cement:aggregate:sand used was 1:1.9:3.8 by weight with a additive-cement ratio of 0.06. The mix proportions used in the CPB products ranged between 0.39 0.45water cement ratio (w/c) for 290 330 kg/m3 cement content, as appropriate to the products under investigation. The volume fraction of rubber was varied as 0 %, 10 %, 20 % and 30 % named T1, T2, T3 and T4, respectively. Table 3 shows the mixing proportioning for the components of these RCPB. A total of 4300 RCPB including control samples were cast and 438 were tested.
Table 3. Mix proportioning per m3 Mix ratio Cement content (kg) Facing Body Facing Body (C:S) (C:A:S) T1 1:2.3 1:1.9:3.8 617 328 T2 1:2.1 1:1.9:3.4 585 317 T3 1:1.9 1:1.9:3.0 604 274 T4 1:1.7 1:1.9:2.6 574 286 Note: C:A:S = (cement:aggregate:sand) W/C ratio Facing 0.23 0.23 0.29 0.26 Body 0.45 0.43 0.48 0.39 Rubber content (%) Facing 0 8.8 21.6 30.4 Body 0 9.7 19.4 29.0

Mix symbol

3.3. Sample preparation The method of manufacturing is called semi-dry pressing, it was used for RCPB plant production. The mixed materials were moulded under a combined vibrating and compacting action in an industrial setting to fulfill the requirement of maintaining a workable mix. Workability of concrete mixtures in plant production was not as important as in normal concretes (Ling and Nor, 2006). The effect of rubber aggregate on the workability of the modified concrete was minimal. Therefore, only a minimal amount of water was allowed to make the mixture fluid enough to be fed into moulding machine. Figure 3 shows the RCPB making process flowchart. Two independent mixers were used with appropriate capacity and worked in parallel to ensure facing layer was added for appearance. Initially, coarse sand, aggregate, cement, 1 5mm crumb rubber and additive

were mixed in the body mix mixer. On the other hand, fine sand, aggregate, cement and 1 3 mm crumb rubber were mixed in the face mix mixer for approximately 1 min. After mixing for 1 min, water was added to the materials in both mixers and mixed for another 1 min. The procedure of mixing and adding water was iterated until the desired moisture content for these semi-dry mixtures was obtained. The ready mixtures were transferred from the pan mixer to a feed hopper. The amount in the feed hopper was controlled by an automatic weighting system. The hopper discharged the correct amount of concrete into the mould in the block making machine. The RCPB were fabricated by block making machine in steel moulds with internal dimensions of 210 mm in length, 105 mm in width and 60 mm in depth. Firstly, the mould was filled with the body mix and vibration and pressing were applied. The face mix was then poured into the mould for the second layer, and then final compaction and vibration were applied for 4 s at the frequency of 60 Hz. The hydraulic ram was released and the head lifted to allow early stripping of RCPB from the steel moulds. The detailed process of making RCPB can be referred to previous research (Ling and Nor, 2006).

Fig. 3. CPB making process control flowchart 3.4. Test Method To promote a good finished texture and strength of RCPB, the early trials need to be done to ensure proper material proportions, water amount and adequate vibration and

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compaction with a particular addition of crumb rubber content in RCPB. The quality assurance is defined as the implementation of a suitable set of pre-established and systematic intended dispositions for giving confidence in the obtaining of the required quality. The implementation comprises measures: for raw materials before manufacturing for fresh products during the manufacturing for finished products after manufacturing All the information which was gathered at different stages of the manufacturing processes and noted in registers were compared with the manufacturing instructions in order to detect and correct possible anomalies. With this, new fresh products introduce in this study can be checked and observed during the manufacturing process. For finished products, density, water absorption and voids in RCPB were examined using the (ASTM C 642, 2006) method. Each value represents the average of five samples. With the procedures and formulations stated in the ASTM, absorption after immersion, absorption after immersion and boiling, bulk density (dry), bulk density after immersion, bulk density after immersion and boiling, apparent density and volume of permeable pore space (voids) were then determined. The acoustic measurement obtained by using impedance tube (ASTM C 384, 2004) was limited to the sound absorption coefficient. The sound absorption coefficient was measured to investigate the possibility of their being used as substitution insulation material for pavement. Cylindrical specimens with a diameter of 95 mm and a thickness of 50 mm were cored from the RCPB. The sample was placed inside a thin cylindrical PVC sleeve, into which it fits snugly. Each value represents the average of three samples. Compressive strength was determined using a Universal Testing Machine with a maximum capacity up to 3000 kN. The load was applied to the nominal area of RCPB. Prior to the loading test, the block was soft capped with two pieces of plywood on both ends to ensure a flat surface for testing to prevent point loading of the specimens. Average value of compressive strength was calculated based on the five specimens (CMAA, 1996). The abrasion index test was carried out in accordance with the (CMAA, 1996) method. The test began by setting up the specimen under the ball-race; the ball-race was then lowered down to the specimen surface and spun at the rate of 1000 revolutions per minute. For every 1000 revolutions, penetration was measured by a dial-gauge. The test was continued until the ball-race had completed 5000 revolutions. The Abrasion index represents the average value obtained from a set of five specimens. The skid resistance of RCPB was determined using a British Pendulum Skid Resistance Tester and it was expressed as the measured British Pendulum Number (BPN) as specified by (ASTM E303, 1993). Prior to the testing, the surface of five samples RCPB was cleaned and pendulum slider was positioned to barely come in contact with the dry and wet test surface. The pendulum was raised to a locked position, and then released to execute the first swing, but value was not recorded. Without delay, four more swings were made, recording the results each time. Impact test using falling weight methods design by (Ling, 2008) was used in this study. Impact test (a) was conducted by using a 3.76 kg falling weight dropped from a height of up to 0.5 m, directly onto a RCPB sitting on a fixed steel plate. The loading face had a diameter of 44.6 mm for the purpose of uniformly transferring the impact load to the RCPB. Impact test (b) was to simulate the behaviour of a RCPB under loss of sub-grade support at actual pavement structure. It was achieved by putting the block supported by two steel rollers at a span set to 150 mm. Impact load was dropped from the centre of a unit block until the block was broken into two halves. Two samples were tested and recorded for each condition.

4. Results and Discussions 4.1. Properties of Fresh RCPB Each batch of fresh RCPB produced was checked manually by sampling the specimens from the pallet, looking for colour variations, both external and internal. Weight and dimensions of five sampling RCPB were checked in accordance to CMAA. Table 4 shows the properties of fresh RCPB. The weight of fresh RCPB which decreases with the increase in the percentage of rubber content could be attributed by low specific gravity of rubber particles. Moreover, an increase in rubber content increases the air content, which in turn reduces the unit weight of the mixtures. This may be due to the non-polar nature of rubber particles and their tendency to entrap air in their rough surfaces. Also when rubber is added to a concrete mixture, it may attract air as it has the tendency to repel water, and then air may adhere to the rubber particles.
Table 4: Properties of fresh RCPB Mix notaDepth Facing layer tion (mm) (mm) T1 59.6 5.5 T2 59.8 5.0 T3 59.2 5.0 T4 59.8 3.3 Weight (kg) 2.82 2.82 2.74 2.68

Visual Observations Very good, no cracking Good Some cracking Some cracking, delamination

4.2 Monitoring of dimensions and physical appearance Any significant change in dimension indicated something awry in the parameters setting during production. Therefore the height of fresh RCPB for each batch mixtures production was checked and monitored by a height control device. After one day curing of fresh RCPB, the physical attribute of hardened RCPB was checked again. The results of the visual inspection of RCPB were no honeycombs, cracks or outstanding deformation were found on T1 and T2 specimens. On the other hand, at a higher rubber content in RCPB, cracks may appear on the facing layer and delamination between the layers. From the test results, the total rejection rate of fresh and hardened RCPB specimens for T1, T2, T3 and T4 were approximately 5.3 %, 9.9 %, 12.4 % and 28.9 %, respectively. All the specimens that were rejected did not meet the CMAA requirement. 4.3. Surface Colour Figure 4 shows the surface colours of the RCPB incorporating 20 % and 30 % crumb rubber were slightly darker than RCPB incorporating 0 % and 10 % crumb rubber. This slight coloration would not cause significant problem for pavement application.

Fig. 4. T1, T2, T3 and T4 specimens

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4.4. Density, water absorption and voids Figure 5 shows the relationship between the crumb rubber content with the water absorption values and voids of the RCPB. The increase of crumb rubber content from 10 % to 30 % increased the water absorption by about 17 %. However for water absorption and voids after immersion and boiling in the water, the control specimens showed higher values compared to the RCPB containing crumb rubber. This may be due to high level and proper compaction applied in commercial plant to RCPB containing crumb rubber, where rubber particles help to fill and accelerate pores in concrete mixture (improve microstructure) because rubber particles are much softer (elastically deformable) than the surrounding particles.

Fig. 5. Relationship between crumb rubber content and water absorption However, comparing the T2, T3 and T4, the adhesion between the crumb rubber and the surrounding cement paste was affected significantly when the crumb rubber content keeps increasing up to 20 % and above. This is because while plant machine applied a high compaction, crumb rubber would be compressed and after the compaction, the hydraulic ram was released and the crumb rubber would return to the actual size resulting in micro cracks and voids between the interfaces in concrete matrix. This resulted in more voids in RCPB and tends to absorb more water. It was found that there was a relationship between the crumb rubber content and density of the RCPB as shown in Fig. 6. It was observed that, as the crumb rubber content keeps increasing, this in turn reduced the apparent density, bulk density for dry, bulk density for after immersion and bulk density for boil in the water. The incorporation crumb rubber up to 30 % in RCPB reduced the (T4) density by 8.0 %, 8.3 %, 6.2 % and 7.3 % over the control specimens for the apparent density and bulk density for dry, after immersion and boil in the water, respectively.

Fig. 6. Relationship between crumb rubber content and density 4.5. Acoustic properties The results of sound absorption coefficients measured by the impedance tube method are shown in Fig. 7. The results are calculated from three samples for dried-surface and wet-surface conditions. In general, the RCPB containing crumb rubber was found to have slightly higher sound absorption coefficients than control specimens over the entire frequency range (1001600 Hz). This can be attributed to the fact that RCPB containing crumb rubber contributes a higher porous surface layer and less density, resulting in lesser frictional losses within the pore structure. All RCPB including control specimens showed increasing sound absorption coefficients as the frequency increased from 100 to 250 Hz. However, it then slows down as the frequency keeps increasing, due to their specific characteristic of reflecting sound in the low frequency range, but absorbing sound in the middle frequency range. At the same percentage of crumb rubber content, RCPB under surface-dried condition has a markedly higher absorption coefficient than the surface-wetted condition. This can be explained by the fact that the porous surface layer of surface-wetted RCPB is soaked with water.

Fig. 7. Sound absorption coefficients of the RCPB

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4.6. Relationship between compressive strength and abrasion resistance The abrasion index and compressive strength of RCPB were determined at the age of 3, 7, 28, 91, 182 and 365 days. As may be seen from the plotted data in Fig. 8, it is possible to establish a strong correlation between abrasion index and compressive strength. Generally, the abrasion index increased with the increase of compressive strength. This increment is primarily attributed to increase in curing age which resulted from the increased maturity of each RCPB. However the improvement of compressive strength was insignificant for T3 and T4 as compared to T1 and T2.

Fig. 8. Relationship between abrasion index and compressive strength Therefore, comparing the rate of abrasion index, T3 and T4 were much higher than T1 and T2 which exhibited an increase in the abrasion index up to 104 % and 138 % as the compressive strength kept increasing up to 21.92 MPa and 32.07 MPa, respectively. The maximum abrasion index and compressive strength achieved for T1, T2, T3 and T4 were (1.06, 60.41), (1.27, 64.68), (1.52, 32.07) and (1.14, 21.92), respectively. These results show that as the crumb rubber content increased in RCPB, it did not show any significant effect to abrasion index even though the rubber particles were weaker. This may be attributed to the rubber particles on facing layer given a protection layer (which is elastically deformable) for RCPB to be abraded. Therefore, reasoning presented for rubber particles in RCPB may not be applicable for abrasion resistance of other types of material mixed in CPB. On the other hand, the amount of crumb rubber significantly affected the development of compressive strength in RCPB. This could be attributed by stress concentrations of higher volume crumb rubber content in RCPB. The strength may also be affected significantly due to the loss of adhesion between the crumb rubber and the surrounding cement paste. 4.7. Skid resistance It was found that there is a good correlation between skid resistance and the crumb rubber content in RCPB. As shown in Fig. 9, it is indicated that as the crumb rubber content increased there was a decrease in the skid resistance. The crumb rubber appeared on the facing layer decreases the contact area between the block surface and pendulum slider. In addition, the smooth surface of the crumb rubber particles also affected the decrease in the skid resistance.

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Fig. 9. Relationship between skid resistance and rubber content under dried-surface and wet-surface condition Furthermore, at the same replacement level, the BPN value under dried-surface condition was higher than that of RCPB under wet condition. This is reasonable since the wet/soaking appearance at the RCPB surface produced a more slippery surface texture, thus reduced skid resistance. The decrement was higher at a high level of rubber content (T4) over the low level of rubber content (T1), which accounted for a 13.7 % and 5.7 % reduction in BPN, respectively. However, all control specimens and RCPB produced in this study met the minimum requirement of ASTM. 4.8. Impact resistance Table 5 shows the number of drops for causing damage by means of impact test (a) and (b) on a set of RCPB. For impact test (a), it is found that the T1 without crumb rubber can be easily broken into two halves at the 1st drop (completely broken without any cracks before) and T2 was broken at the 4th drop (completely broken with cracks after three drops). However, for the RCPB containing higher rubber content (T3 and T4), extra force was needed to fully open the broken RCPB even after the 8th and 9th drops. This means that the RCPB has a significant capability in absorbing dynamic load and in resisting crack propagation.
Table 5. Number of drops for causing damage on a set of RCPB Small crack Transverse crack Falling weight test RCPB type Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 1 Sample 2 T1 T2 2 2 3 3 (a) Test on a fixed steel plate T3 3 3 5 6 T4 4 4 6 6 T1 (b) Test on two T2 steel rollers at a span 150 mm T3 1 1 T4 1 1 Completely broken Sample 1 Sample 2 1 1 6 4 8 9 10 9 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2

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Comparing the RCPB under impact test (b), T3 and T4 also showed a better performance in resistance to impact than T1 and T2. It can be explained by an observation that after the 1st central impact was achieved by means of falling weight, T3 and T4 specimens were not fully broken into two halves under the loss of bottom support condition. The enhanced toughness can also be demonstrated by the effort required to fully open the RCPB. The toughness is known as energy absorption capacity and is generally calculated from the area under load-deflection curve up to where the point failure is plotted. Fig. 10 shows the typical loaddeflection curve of T1, T2, T3 and T4. The figure indicated that as the crumb rubber content increased, it increased the property of deformability and the maximum deflections. Even after the maximum applied load, it was observed that at a higher crumb rubber content, RCPB was able to withstand and fail gradually. This means that the samples were not completely fractured and could withstand post-failure loads with deformations. From Fig. 11, it is also noticed that the energy absorption by RCPB (exhibit a higher displacement at failure mode as rubber content increase) is much larger than that by the conventional CPB.

Fig. 10. Loaddeflection curve of T1, T2, T3 and T4 specimens

Fig. 11. Failure patterns of T1, T2, T3 and T4 blocks: (a) plan view; (b) side view

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5. Conclusions This paper describes the potential use of recycled waste tyres (crumb rubber) as an aggregate in RCPB production for pedestrian and trafficked pavement end user. Four different percentages of crumb rubber including control mix were designed for RCPB production by commercial plant equipment and conventional processes. It is found that there were no complications when applying the mixtures to full-scale production in factory. Crumb rubber is a fine material with the gradation close to that of coarse sand. Therefore replacement of sand is the most suitable choice than other particles in RCPB production. The rubber particles are not as strong as basic items in CPB but have very high toughness characteristic (elastically deformable). For this reason it is suggested that the rubber substitution should not exceed 20 % in RCPB for trafficked pavement application. The substitution amount of 10 % (T2) seemed more viable and provides higher strength (because it is made under vibration and extreme pressure) and moderate toughness to the RCPB which could be of great advantage to the environment and trafficked pavement application. It is because RCPB will be more flexible and soft to the surface which provides a better riding quality. On the other hand, T3 and T4 with low strength and high toughness characteristics can be introduced for specific purposes such as sidewalks and playground which do not require a high strength RCPB and may be viable for other applications, depending on the percentage of crumb rubber used. RCPB incorporating crumb rubber which was found to have slightly higher sound absorption coefficients may resolve the noise generation problem faced by conventional concrete block pavement. A series of laboratory accelerated loading test was also carried out by the author and encouraging results on structural performance of RCPB pavement were obtained (Ling et al, 2008). Therefore, RCPB products can be introduced for varied paving application.

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