Concrete railway sleepers have been used for years without an update in production and design, to be compatible with demands for increasing train axle loads and speed. In the current research, concrete railway admixture is modified with consuming (0.5% straight-1.5% hooked), (1.5% straight-0.5% hooked) and (1% straight-1% hooked) steel fibers combinations. Three main mechanical experiments as compressive, flexural and splitting tensile strengths and fresh mortar “flowability” were performed. Results showed that the hybrid of 1% straight and 1% hooked steel fibers shows the optimal performance among other hybrid combinations. This hybrid admixture efficiently improves the compressive, flexural and splitting tensile strengths of the concrete railway sleeper mix design.
Waste rubber tires and glass powders, are hazardous materials for the environment. One of the methods to consume them, is their application in railway engineering projects. Rubber and glass materials, in this research, are provided from waste tires and glass bottles. Therefore, a modification is conducted to the concrete railway sleeper mix design, incorporated with waste rubber (R) and glass powder (GP). Three mechanical tests, including compressive, flexural and tensile splitting, have been studied on rubber and glass powder concrete specimens. Three different percentages of 5%, 10% and 15% by cement weight, for GP and by fine aggregate volume for R, are investigated herein. The results show that GP concrete has a better performance over the rubber concrete (RC), but lower than Ref. specimens. 5%GP as the best mix design, has compressive, flexural and tensile strengths of 45.4 MPa, 7.5 MPa and 5.82 MPa, respectively. Moreover, these strengths, for compressive and flexural, of 5%GP are about 24% and 6% lower than the Ref. strengths, respectively, while, tensile splitting strength is almost 14% higher than Ref. strength.