Bending response of hybrid ferrocement plates with meshes and fibers: Fid-Bau Portal

Bending response of hybrid ferrocement plates with meshes and fibers

Wang, S. / Naaman, A.E. / Li, V.C.

For ferrocement and laminated cementitious composites, increasing the number of mesh layers is not an efficient way to improve the modulus of rupture (MOR); moreover, at high reinforcement ratio severe spalling of matrix cover and delamination of extreme tensile layer are likely to lead to premature failure. Adding discontinuous fibers to the matrix provides a remedy to these drawbacks. In this paper, the bending response of hybrid ferrocement thin plates reinforced with meshes and fibers is reported and compared with conventional ferrocement composite with meshes and Plain mortar. Three types of meshes, including two expanded steel meshes and one Kevlar FRP mesh, combined with two types of synthetic fibers, namely Spectra and PVA fibers, were experimentally investigated The test results show that even at a high volume fraction of 6.73 %, the expanded steel mesh can still be effectively used as reinforcement of ferrocement and a MOR exceeding 60 MPa was achieved Compared with the specimens using plain mortar, the presence of fiber results in substantial increase in MOR, significant reduction in crack spacing and in turn crack width, prevention of cover spalling even at large deflection, and considerable improvement in shear capacity. An increase of the toughness and energy absorption to failure by up to 250 % was also observed when a ductile fiber reinforced matrix was used with the FRP meshes. Non-linear analysis was employed to predict the MORs of the composites, and good agreement was observed