Bending behaviour of cement based composites reinforced with jute textile

Abstract

Cement pasts and mortars can be reinforced with vegetable fibers in order to obtain thin section building components with varying shapes. The use of vegetable fibers as reinforcement is quite attractive once they are cheap and present high specific strength and low density. In addition, they came from renewable resources, require low energy consumption for manufacture and are neutral with respect to CO(2). However, vegetable fibers can mineralize inside the alkaline environment of cementitious materials. This is due to calcium hydroxide (CH) migration to the fibers' lumen and walls. In this work, a matrix totally free of CH was used to prevent jute fiber mineralization. Cement-based laminates reinforced with three, four, five and six layers of jute textile were produced by hand lay-up resulting in composites reinforced with fiber volume fractions ranging from 5.5% to 11%. The composites were tested under four point bending test to determine its first crack, post-peak strength, toughness and fracture process. Composites with high toughness, strength and multiple cracking processes were obtained for all volume fractions studied.