Compressive strength of woven and strand of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) reinforced concrete

Abstract

Woven fiber reinforced concrete is a material, which contains various quantities of polymer materials in composition, in addition to the conventional components of an ordinary concrete (mineral binder - cement, aggregates, water and additives). The present work refers to the concrete in which the reinforcement is made of polymeric materials (polyethylene terephthalate), originated from the recycling programs of PET-type packaging. The experimental program was aimed at constructing some samples of woven fiber reinforced concrete from recycled material coming from PET packaging wastes, their testing to the compression demands and the comparison of results with the characteristics of the standardized samples of concrete (class C30/37). Based on a sufficient number of determinations, certain correlations can be established between the compressive strength of the concrete at 28 days depending on the dosage of components (aggregate, binder, and reinforcement), water / cement ratio, reinforcement volume, etc., essential parameters from a compositional point of view. These correlations, customized by cement type and strength class, are very important to determine - with approximation - to what dosage of components (aggregate, binder, reinforcement) the respective level of compressive strength of concrete is obtained.