Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC): Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior

Ze-Ming Yang; Zhi-Liang Zhang; Jia-Yu Dong; Feng-Yi Zhuo; Jia-Xiang Lin; Ling-Yu Xu; Kai-Di Peng; Bo-Tao Huang

doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2026.147122

Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC): Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior

Ze-Ming Yang (Co-first Author)
, Zhi-Liang Zhang (Co-first Author)
, Jia-Yu Dong
, Feng-Yi Zhuo
, Jia-Xiang Lin
, Ling-Yu Xu^*
, Kai-Di Peng^*
, Bo-Tao Huang

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Under uniaxial tension, Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC) typically exhibit over-saturated cracking behaviors. This study aims to assess and model the double-stage crack evolutions of rubberized EGC, which is of significance to its future applications. A Weibull-based probabilistic model was developed based on crack width data and the modification of Weibull parameters. The modeling results showed good agreement with the experimental and best-fit results, demonstrating its capability in characterizing crack width evolution. In addition, compared with the reported rubberized ECC and EGC, the mixture incorporating 100% crumb rubber developed in this study exhibited a more favorable balance between mechanical performance and sustainability. It yielded the lowest VIKOR index of 0.02 under the equal-weighting multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and showed the strongest ranking robustness in the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) analysis with randomly assigned weights. These findings demonstrate a viable pathway for upcycling waste tires into sustainable high-performance construction materials. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd.

Original language	English
Article number	147122
Journal	Construction and Building Materials
Volume	537
Online published	22 Jun 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2026.147122
Publication status	Online published - 22 Jun 2026

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2025YFF0518800), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52409179 and 52308290), the National Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scientists Fund Program (Overseas), the Project Supported by Xinmiao Project of ZheJiang Provincial Applied Basic Research Program (2026XMZD054), and A Project Supported by Scientific Research Fund of Zhejiang University (XY2025055).

Research Keywords

Crack modeling
Crumb rubber
Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC)
Over-saturated cracking
Strain-Hardening Geopolymer Composites (SHGC)
Sustainability
Weibull distribution

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10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2026.147122

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Yang, Z.-M., Zhang, Z.-L., Dong, J.-Y., Zhuo, F.-Y., Lin, J.-X., Xu, L.-Y., Peng, K.-D., & Huang, B.-T. (2026). Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC): Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior. Construction and Building Materials, 537, Article 147122. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2026.147122

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title = "Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC): Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior",

abstract = "Under uniaxial tension, Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC) typically exhibit over-saturated cracking behaviors. This study aims to assess and model the double-stage crack evolutions of rubberized EGC, which is of significance to its future applications. A Weibull-based probabilistic model was developed based on crack width data and the modification of Weibull parameters. The modeling results showed good agreement with the experimental and best-fit results, demonstrating its capability in characterizing crack width evolution. In addition, compared with the reported rubberized ECC and EGC, the mixture incorporating 100\% crumb rubber developed in this study exhibited a more favorable balance between mechanical performance and sustainability. It yielded the lowest VIKOR index of 0.02 under the equal-weighting multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and showed the strongest ranking robustness in the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) analysis with randomly assigned weights. These findings demonstrate a viable pathway for upcycling waste tires into sustainable high-performance construction materials. {\textcopyright} 2026 Elsevier Ltd.",

keywords = "Crack modeling, Crumb rubber, Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC), Over-saturated cracking, Strain-Hardening Geopolymer Composites (SHGC), Sustainability, Weibull distribution",

author = "Ze-Ming Yang and Zhi-Liang Zhang and Jia-Yu Dong and Feng-Yi Zhuo and Jia-Xiang Lin and Ling-Yu Xu and Kai-Di Peng and Bo-Tao Huang",

year = "2026",

month = jun,

day = "22",

doi = "10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2026.147122",

language = "English",

volume = "537",

journal = "Construction and Building Materials",

issn = "0950-0618",

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Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC): Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior. / Yang, Ze-Ming (Co-first Author); Zhang, Zhi-Liang (Co-first Author); Dong, Jia-Yu et al.
In: Construction and Building Materials, Vol. 537, 147122, 29.08.2026.

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC)

T2 - Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior

AU - Yang, Ze-Ming

AU - Zhang, Zhi-Liang

AU - Dong, Jia-Yu

AU - Zhuo, Feng-Yi

AU - Lin, Jia-Xiang

AU - Xu, Ling-Yu

AU - Peng, Kai-Di

AU - Huang, Bo-Tao

PY - 2026/6/22

Y1 - 2026/6/22

N2 - Under uniaxial tension, Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC) typically exhibit over-saturated cracking behaviors. This study aims to assess and model the double-stage crack evolutions of rubberized EGC, which is of significance to its future applications. A Weibull-based probabilistic model was developed based on crack width data and the modification of Weibull parameters. The modeling results showed good agreement with the experimental and best-fit results, demonstrating its capability in characterizing crack width evolution. In addition, compared with the reported rubberized ECC and EGC, the mixture incorporating 100% crumb rubber developed in this study exhibited a more favorable balance between mechanical performance and sustainability. It yielded the lowest VIKOR index of 0.02 under the equal-weighting multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and showed the strongest ranking robustness in the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) analysis with randomly assigned weights. These findings demonstrate a viable pathway for upcycling waste tires into sustainable high-performance construction materials. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd.

AB - Under uniaxial tension, Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC) typically exhibit over-saturated cracking behaviors. This study aims to assess and model the double-stage crack evolutions of rubberized EGC, which is of significance to its future applications. A Weibull-based probabilistic model was developed based on crack width data and the modification of Weibull parameters. The modeling results showed good agreement with the experimental and best-fit results, demonstrating its capability in characterizing crack width evolution. In addition, compared with the reported rubberized ECC and EGC, the mixture incorporating 100% crumb rubber developed in this study exhibited a more favorable balance between mechanical performance and sustainability. It yielded the lowest VIKOR index of 0.02 under the equal-weighting multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and showed the strongest ranking robustness in the Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) analysis with randomly assigned weights. These findings demonstrate a viable pathway for upcycling waste tires into sustainable high-performance construction materials. © 2026 Elsevier Ltd.

KW - Crack modeling

KW - Crumb rubber

KW - Engineered Geopolymer Composites (EGC)

KW - Over-saturated cracking

KW - Strain-Hardening Geopolymer Composites (SHGC)

KW - Sustainability

KW - Weibull distribution

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DO - 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2026.147122

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

SN - 0950-0618

VL - 537

JO - Construction and Building Materials

JF - Construction and Building Materials

M1 - 147122

ER -

Upcycling waste tires into High-Strength Engineered Geopolymer Composites (HS-EGC): Double-stage modeling of over-saturated cracking behavior

Abstract

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Research Keywords

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