Experimental Investigation on Polypropylene Fiber Reinforced Concrete With Artificial
The paper presents research work of experimental investigation on polypropylene fiber reinforced concrete by replacing river sand to artificial sand with and without admixture. Use of fiber reinforce polymer in civil engineering increase rapidly. Various type of fiber is used such as glass, carbon, steel, asbestos, polyester and polypropylene. The various experimental investigations for determination of properties of polypropylene fiber are discussed in paper work. This paper presents the effect of polypropylene (PP) fibers on various properties of concrete such as compressive strength, tensile strength, workability, and fracture properties with various content of fiber(0% ,0.5%,1.0%,1.5%). The result of this present investigation indicates that by adding of 0.5% of polypropylene fiber shows maximum compressive and tensile strength.
An Investigation on Adding Polypropylene Fibers to Reinforce Lightweight Cement Composites (LWC)
The influence of polypropylene fibers has been studied in different proportioning and fiber length to improve the performance characteristics of the lightweight cement composites. Fibers used in two different lengths (6mm and 12mm) and fiber proportions (0.15% and 0.35%) by cement weight in the mixture design. Hardened concrete properties such as: 7- and 28-day compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, water absorption, and shrinkage were evaluated. Fiber addition was seen to enhance the physical and mechanical properties of lightweight concrete. Compared to unreinforced LWC, polypropylene (PP) reinforced LWC with fiber proportioning 0.35% and 12 mm fiber length, caused 30.1% increase in the flexural strength and 27% increase in the splitting tensile strength. Increased fiber availability in the LWC matrix, in addition to the ability of longer PP fibers to bridge on the micro cracks, are suggested as the reasons for the enhancement in mechanical properties.
Performance of fibers embedded in a cementitious matrix
Reinforcement of cementitious materials with short fibers has been proved to be an economical and effective way to convert these brittle materials to ductile products. Many fibers with different geometries have been used as reinforcement materials. Fibers bonding to cementitious materials play an important role in mechanical performance of these composites. This article describes the performance of (homemade) fibers as reinforcement in cement-based materials by investigation on bonding characteristic of fiber to cement matrix. To this end, the fibers (glass, polypropylene, polyacrylonitrile (PAN), and high strength nylon 66 (N66)) are characterized using microscopy analysis, tensile strength, and alkali attack tests. The fibers embedded in the cement matrix, then, pulled-out to evaluate their bonding to cementitious materials. SEM analysis is used to study fiber/cement interfacial transition zone. The results show that PAN fibers have the advantages of preparing for cementitious reinforcement. It was found that the reinforcing efficiency of fibers-reinforced cementitious composites was strongly depending on interfacial contact area in fiber/matrix interface and chemical/physical properties of fibers. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010