Scrap Tires as Wave Barriers in the Marine Environment-

Analysis of pros and cons

S. Neelamani

COASTAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMENVIRONMENT & LIFE SCIENCES RESEARCH CENTRE

KUWAIT INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHKUWAIT

Email: nsubram@kisr.edu.kwsneelamani@yahoo.com

Mobile: 99278411

Aim of this Presentation

Whether Scrap tires can be used in Kuwaiti marine waters as wave barriers/floating breakwaters?

Reason for “YES”

Million of scrap tire in the dumping yard in Kuwait and is increasing every year

Good quality stones are not available in Kuwait

Floating breakwaters are suitable for Kuwaiti marine condition

Reason for “NO”

Environmental effect due to possible leaching

Engineering failures reported from some projects around the world (Ex: Osborne reef in US using scrap tires)

News from MAIL ONLINE – 7th June 2013

World’s biggest tyre graveyard: Incredible images of Kuwaiti landfill site that is home to SEVEN MILLION wheels and so huge it can be seen from space

Gigantic holes are dug out from the sandy earth and filled with old tyres every year - there are now over 7 million

The expanse of rubber is so vast that the sizeable fields are now visible from space

The European landfill directive means that this type of 'waste disposal' would be illegal in the UK

In Britain all car and truck tyres must be recovered, recycled or reused.

General reuse of Scrap tire around the world

Tire-Derived Fuel (TDF) Civil engineering applications Ground rubber applications/rubberized asph

alt

Normal constituents of tires

Rubber 62% Carbon black 32% Zinc oxide 1.5% Sulphur 0.6% Additives 4.5%.

Favorable Wave Climate in Kuwait and Arabian Gulf for Scrap tire Wave Barriers

Moderate wave climate for more than 85% of the year

Significant wave height of more than 3.0 occur very rarely

Peak wave periods of more than 8.0 sec occur very rarely

Very ideal for Floating wave barriers

Typical Floating Breakwater

Sea Side-More waves

Harbour Side-Less waves

Motivation With 1.6 million cars on the road, Kuwait

produces more than 1.0 million scrap tires every year (Q8NRI.com, 10th Oct. 2010)

Beneficial reuse is a SOLUTION for scrap tire waste management

1 million scrap tire is sufficient to build floating barriers of about 500 to 700 m long (Conventional barrier in 2 m water depth costs about KD. 500,000/- to 700,000/-).

1200 m

700 m

World’s biggest Scrap tire Grave yard is in Kuwait

Marina using Floating scrap tire barrier (Example: Quro Island)

Approach trestle

Floating barrier using scrap tires

Application I-Breakwater for Marina

Application II- Protection of offshore crude oil loading terminals from wave activity

Scrap tire wave barrier

Waves

Floating SCRAP TIRE breakwater for Erosion Protection of Islands (Example: Qaro Island)

Application III-Erosion protection

Scrap tire wave barrier

Application IV- To facilitate safe offshore Construction activity by reducing the wave climate

Scrap tire as Reef

Typical Application-Protection of a marine facility

from wave activity

Typical Application-Small Harbor

Typical C/S view of an assembled floating breakwater with scrap tires

Scrap tire assembly for Floating breakwater

Justification of reusing scrap tire in the marine area

Scrap tires are available in plenty. Reusing is a solution for disposing

them Technically Suitable for Kuwait and

Gulf type marine Environment Cost effective compared to

conventional wave barriers

Justification of reusing scrap tire in the marine area (Contd..)

Easy for handling, towing, installation and mobility

Independency of sea bed soil conditions

Better water circulation to prevent possible pollutions of water at the lee side of the breakwater

Justification (Contd…)

Easy for reorientation and removal Articulating capability with tidal

variations unlike fixed breakwater. Easy fish migration between sea side and

lee side Since it is flexible, the mooring forces is

expected to be smaller compared to a non-flexible wave barrier of similar configuration

Demerits

Not suitable for predominantly low frequency wave climate

Not suitable for high energy sea state

Careful and periodic maintenance is required

Careful assessment of environmental impact is needed

Coastal Protection works in Qaro Island as on Today

Quro Island – Erosion scene as on today

Important literature on Engineering applications of Scrap tires Kowalski (1974a and 1974b) Candle and Piper (1974) Shaw and Ross (1977) McGregor (1978) McGregor and Miller (1978) Hibarger et al. (1979) Harms (1979) Collins et al (1995) Gu (2005) Yu and Yu (2009) Neelamani et al. (2012).

Engineering Optimization

It is necessary to optimize the scrap tire as a floating wave barrier with MINIMUM No. of scrap tire/m run but MAXIMUM wave energy dissipation

Needs thorough research

Typical plan view of a single layer scrap tire wave barrier assembly

Variable

Typical plan view of a double layer scrap tire wave barrier assembly

Wave Flume for the Experimental Investigation

Typical set-up for the measurements of hydrodynamic parameters

(Variable)

(Variable)

d

Δ

(H and T, (Variable))

Field trial of the recommended scrap tire configuration at Quro island

To gain the experience of assembling scrap tires as per the recommendation from the lab study and to learn the installation technique in the field.

Field trial of the recommended scrap tire configuration at Quro island (Contd..)

To monitor the scrap tire barrier periodically and observe its physical condition in the actual marine field.

The scrap tire assembly may attract marine growth and may sink over a period of time.

In such case, it is necessary to assess the rate of marine growth in order to estimate the buoyancy requirement for the scrap tire barrier per unit volume/unit surface area.

Polyurethane Buoys

Important Literatures on Environmental aspects of Scrap Tires

Zelibor (1991) Ealding (1992) Day et al. (1993) Downs et al. (1996) Evans (1997) Al-Tabbaa and Aravithan (1998) Jang et al. (1998) Hartwell et al. (1998) Collins et al. (2002) Azizian and Nelson (2003) Selbes (2009).

Some important conclusions from the literatures:

The best condition for using scrap tire chips in environmental reuse applications was found to be around the neutral pH conditions.

When tire (chips) was exposed to acidic conditions, iron was the most significant metal leaching from tires at very large quantities (up to ~800 mg / 100 g tire).

Some important conclusions from the literatures (Contd..):

When the tire (chips) was exposed to basic conditions, the leaching of Dissolved Organic Compound (DOC) significantly increased, reaching 27 mg / 100 g tire.

The mass of DOC leached during the first 12 hr consisted of 40-50% of the leaching during the first week and 20-25% of the leaching during the four weeks.

Some important conclusions from the literatures (Contd..): Leaching reduces with increase in size of

the tire chips. It means, if the whole tire is used for the marine application (rather than cut pieces), the leaching intensity will be less.

Leaching properties of a scrap tire decreases with higher water salinity and increases with higher water temperatures. (Collins, 2002)

CONCLUSIONS REUSE OF SCRAP TIRES in the

Kuwaiti marine environment as WAVE BARRIERS looks like an attractive solution

Thorough EIA is needed based on long term leaching and other environment study

Conclusions (Contd..)

Optimization of Floating tire assembly is needed.

Proven engineering design is a must, since report on engineering failures are plenty.

A pilot plant study is needed for proving its suitability for Kuwait.

Conclusions (Contd..)

1 million scrap tire is sufficient to build floating barriers of about 500 to 700 m long (Conventional rubble mound barrier in 2 m water depth costs about KD. 500,000/- to 700,000/-).

References Al-Tabbaa A. and Aravithan T. (1998). Natural clay-shredded tire mixtures as landfill barrier

materials, Waste Management 18, 9-16. Azizian M., Nelson P. O., Thyumanavan P. and Williamson K.J. (2003). Environmental impact of

highway construction and repair materials on surface and ground waters: Case study: Crumb rubber asphalt concrete. Waste Management 23, 719-728.

Candle, R.D. and D.R. Piper. (1974). The proposed Goodyear modular mat type scrap tire scrap tire wave barrier. Report published by Goodyear Publisher, Origin: TU Delft, The Netherlands; Repository Hydraulic Engineering Reports.

Collins, K. J., A. C. Jensen and S. Albert. (1995). A Review of Waste Tire Utilization in the Marine Environment. Chemistry and Ecology, 10 (3-4), pp. 205-216.

Collins, K.J., Jensen, A.C., Mallinson, J.J., Roenelle, V. and Smith, I.P. (2002). Environmental impact assessment of a scrap tire artificial reef. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 59: S243-S249.

Day, K.E., K.E. Holtze, J.L. Metcalfe-Smith, C.T. Bishop, and B.J. Dutka (1993). Toxicity of leachate from automobile tires to aquatic biota. Chemosphere. 27 (4), pp.665-675.

Downs L.A., Humphrey D.N.; Katz L.E. and Rock C.A. (1996). Water quality effects of using tire shreds below the groundwater table. Technical Report 94-I, Department of Civil Environmental Engineering, University of Maine, Orono.

Ealding W. (1992). Final report on leachable metals in scrap tires. Virginia Department of Transportation.

References (Contd..) Evans, J.J. (1997). Rubber Tire Leachates in the Aquatic Environment,

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 1997, Vol. 151, pp. 67-115. Goda, Y. and Y. Suzuki. (1976). Estimation of incident and reflected waves in random wave

experiments. Proc. of 15th Coastal Engineering Conference, pp. 828-845. Gu, R.R., (2005). Beneficial Reuses of Scrap Tires in Hydraulic Engineering. The Handbook of

Environmental Chemistry, 2005, Vol. 5F, pp.183-215. Hartwell, S. I., D. M. Jordahl, C. E. O. Dawson and A. S. Ives. (1998). Toxicity of Scrap Tire

Leachates in Estuarine Salinities: Are Tires Acceptable for Artificial Reefs?. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society , 127 (5), pp.796-806.

Harms, V W. (1979). Data and Procedures for the Design of Floating Tire Breakwaters. Accession No. 00198700; National Technical Information Service. 5301 Shawnee Road, Alexandria, VA 22312 USA, Order Number: PB-297187/7ST. 122 pages.

Hibarger, G.E., G. G. Hibarger and D. W. Daniel. (1979). Breakwater System. US Patent No.4150909.

Jang, J.W., Yoo, T.S., Oh, J. H., and Iwasaki, I. (1998). Discarded tire recycling practices in the United States, Japan and Korea. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 22 (1-2), pp.1-14.

References (Contd..) Koftis, T. and Prinos, P. (2005). On the hydrodynamic efficiency of scrap tire wave barriers. Arabian

Coast Conference, Dubai. Kowalski, T. (1974a). Scrap Tire Scrap tire wave barriers. In: Rhode Island University Marine

Technical Report Series No. 24, p 233-246, 1974. Kowalski, T. (1974b). Scrap Tire Scrap tire wave barriers. Scrap tire wave barriers Conference,

Newport, Rhode Island, April 23-25, 1974. McGregor, R. C., and N.S. Miller (1978). Scrap tire breakwaters in Coastal Engineering. Chapter

132, Proc. Of 15th Coastal Engineering Conference-1978, pp.2190-2208. McGregor, R.C. (1978). The design of scrap-tyre scrap tire wave barriers with special reference to

fish farms. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Section B. Biological Sciences, 76 (1-3), January 1978, pp. 115-133.

Murali, K. and J.S. Mani. (1997). Performance of Cage Scrap tire wave barrier, Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering 123(4), pp.172-179.

Neelamani, S., Al-Hulail, F. and Al-Shatti, F. (2012). Design, Development and Prototype Testing of Wave Barriers Using Scrap Tires. Research proposal, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research.

References (Contd..) Q8NRI.com. (2010). Statistics reveal one car for every two persons in Kuwait. 10 th October 2010. Selbes, M. (2009). Leaching of dissolved organic carbon and selected inorganic constituents from

scrap tires. Master thesis. Graduate school of Clemson University, Shaw, G. and Ross, N. (1977). How to build a floating tire breakwater

Publ. by: UM/UNH, Durham, NH (USA)., Sept. 1977, Inf. Bull. Maine /NH Coop. Inst. Sea Grant Program, 14 pages.

US EPA Report, (2010). Scrap tires: Handbook on recycling applications and management for US and Mexico. US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC, EPA 530-R-10-010, December 2010.

Yu, K.C. and Yu, Y.C. (2009). The Experimental Study of the Floating Tire Breakwater, Airitilibrary, pp.42-53.

Zelibor J. L. (1991). The RMA TCLP assessment project: Leachate from tire samples. Scrap Tire Management Council.