Flexural performance of hybrid engineered cementitious composite layered reinforced concrete beams

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental investigation to evaluate the flexural performance of newly developed hybrid Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) layer at tension zone around the main reinforcement of beam. Four different ECC mixes are used in the beam to evaluate the flexural performance, hybrid ECC based on the low modulus poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) and high modulus steel short random fibre reinforcement. The aim of hybridation is to improve the flexural, energy absorption and ductility performance of reinforced concrete beams. In addition to the compressive strength, young’s modulus, uniaxial tensile strength and bond strength of ECC mixes are determined. ECC with PVA fibre with 2.0% volume fraction mix is kept as reference mix, hybridation is made with PVA (1.35%) and steel (0.65%), PVA (1.00%) and steel (1.00%) and finally with PVA (0.65%) and steel (1.35%). This hybridization has a remarkable achievement in mechanical properties and in the flexural behavior in ECC layered RC beam. From the results, it has been observed that mono fiber ECC reinforced with PVA of 2.0% and hybrid fiber ECC reinforced with 1.35 % of PVA fiber and 0.65% of steel fiber has reasonable flexural characteristics than the conventional beam.