Mechanical properties of hybrid ultra-high performance engineered cementitous composites incorporating steel and polyethylene fibers

Abstract

This paper presents the authors' newly developed hybrid ultra-high performance (HUHP) engineered cementitious composite (ECC) with steel (ST) and polyethylene (PE) fibers. From this point on it will be referred to as HUHP-ECC. The volumes of steel and PE fibers were adjusted to obtain different mechanical properties, including compressive strength, tensile, and flexural properties. We found that tensile and flexural properties, including bending strength and ductility indexes, increased with higher PE fiber amounts but reduced with the increased ST fiber volume. Notably, the compressive strength had the opposite tendency and decreased with increases in the PE volume. The ST fiber had a significantly positive effect on the compressive strength. The fluidity of HUHP-ECC improved with the increasing amount of ST fiber. The pseudo strain-hardening (PSH) values for all the HUHP-ECC mixtures were used to create an index indicating the ability of strain capacity; thus, the PSH values were calculated to explain the ductility of HUHP-ECC with different fiber volumes. Finally, the morphology of PE and ST fibers at the fracture surface was observed by an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM).