RUCONBAR project reduces road noise

Description

RUCONBAR is a highly absorptive, environmentally-friendly concrete noise barrier.

It is an innovative mixture of recycled waste tyres and concrete which forms a porous, lightweight, sound absorbing panel. The project developed an easily transferable and highly replicable method for recycling waste tyres, designing an environmentally-friendly product which meets the standards required to be placed on the market.

RUCONBAR was developed as part of a project which ran from 2011 to 2014, co-funded by the CIP Eco-Innovation Initiative implemented by the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI). The project was coordinated by the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the University of Zagreb, with the participation of Beton-Lucko LTD, Gumiimpex-GRP PLC and Institut IGH, and the Zoological Garden of Zagreb.

RUCONBAR promotes noise mitigation and waste management.

Main results
  • Reduction of GHG emissions and consumption of non-renewable resources
  • Recycling waste tyres
  • 40% of the rubber granules used in RUCONBAR's absorptive layer are recycled from old tyres. Yearly, about 3.4 million tonnes of old tyres are disposed of in Europe
  • RUCONBAR provides an innovative solution for turning old tyres into a useful material (i.e. it will take 7800 end-of-life tyres to make 1 km of RUCONBAR wall)
  • RUCONBAR has been certified (CE) for use on road and rail infrastructure. It has also won several awards.