Experimental investigation on structural behaviour of concrete using polyethylene terephthalate fibres

Abstract

Concrete is a versatile building material used in almost all types of construction works. Due to ever increasing demand for construction, need for new materials to modify the properties of concrete to suit the requirements for a particular type of work is the need of the hour. Though concrete is very good in compression, it tends to fail early when subjected to tension force which results in the provision of steel reinforcement to overcome its deficiencies under tensile load. Even after the addition of steel reinforcement, concrete still proves to be weak in crack resistance and has low ductile strength. To improve the ductility behaviour of concrete, various materials have been introduced into concrete and most important among them is fibres Though various forms of fibres are used, only very few proves to be successful. Plastic fibres obtained from disposed PET bottles in three different forms were used in this research work as a fibre in concrete. It serves as a new ingredient in concrete as well as provides solution to ever increasing solid waste management problems also. Three forms of fibres namely manually cut fibres PF, shredded flakes PFL, PET wires PW and another hybrid fibre PFW containing mixture of PF and PW were added in concrete and the properties were tested. All the fibres were added into concrete in a weight fraction of 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% and 2%. newlineMechanical properties like compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength were studied to find the optimum content of fibres to be added in concrete. newline newline