Influence of continuous plastic fibers reinforcement arrangement in concrete strengthened

Abstract

Many studies have been done using waste short plastic fibers to reinforce concrete. The objective of this investigation is the development of a novel arrangement of reinforcement with continuous recycled PET fibers, to enhance the mechanical properties of concrete beams. The novel arrangement consists of continuous PET fibers of the same length as concrete beams, placed in the mold, fixed and prestressed prior to casting the concrete. Due to the fact that in previous investigations on concrete reinforced with PET fibers, these fibers have been used in a short, dispersed way; it is of interest to compare the effect of the novel arrangement of continuous fiber reinforcement with the typical short, discontinuous fiber reinforcement. Thus, in this paper concrete beams were reinforced using both fiber arrangements. The mechanical behavior of reinforced concrete samples were evaluated and compared by bending tests. The results showed a better performance of the continuous PET fiber reinforcement than that of the short, discontinuous one; the continuous PET samples presented a great increase in the concrete properties in 150% the maximum load in bending. Before testing the concrete composites, recycled PET fibers were mechanically and structurally characterized by FTIR, DSC and tensile tests.

Effects of PET Fibers on Pumpability, Shootability, and Mechanical Properties of Wet-Mix Shotcrete

“…e most effective technique of mitigating concrete cracking is by reinforcing shotcrete with fibers. Randomly distributed fibers in concrete provide bridging forces across cracks and thus improve the concrete strength [9][10][11][12]. So far, different types of fibers have been used in reinforced concrete.…”

“…ere are two methods for producing the PET fiber. One way is to cut a PET bottle by hand or using a mechanical cutting device [11,13,19]; the other is to melt the PET bottle and then pull them into monofilaments by an extruder [15,[20][21][22][23]. e properties of PET fiber, such as physical, chemical, and mechanical features, affect the concrete reinforcement.…”

“…e properties of PET fiber, such as physical, chemical, and mechanical features, affect the concrete reinforcement. In the literature studies [11,19], the properties of PET fiber from 6 different bottle brands were studied and DSC analyses were done to explore the similarities in the thermal behavior of the PET bottle samples; FTIR spectroscopy analyses were performed to determine the structural state and homogeneity of PET fibers; tension tests of PET fibers were done by pulling the fiber along the longitudinal direction.…”

Pet Fiber Reinforced Wet-Mix Shotcrete with Walnut Shell as Replaced Aggregate

“…Then, the bottles were cut by hand or a mechanical cutting device, as reported in the literature [48,49], which is simplest and economic cutting method. The fiber dimensions were approximately 2-3 mm in width, 0.34 mm in thickness and lengths of 20-25 mm for fibers ( Figure 3).…”

“…Different waste bottles (such as refreshing drinks, water, tea and juices) were measured [48,49]. The results showed that all the PET fiber samples basically had the same spectrum according to FTIR spectra tests, slight differences of crystallinity observed by tests of DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) thermograms, the Young's modulus and tensile strength of 3830 ± 47 MPa, 108 ± 15 MPa, respectively [48,49]. Thus, different waste bottles had a minor variation from one sample to another.…”