Cleaner Materials (Sep 2022)
Durability study on engineered cementitious composites with hybrid fibers under sulfate and chloride environments
Abstract
Engineered cementitious composite (ECC) is an exclusive type of cement mixture composite which imparts high ductility and high tensile strength. Over the decades, enormous strides have been made in creating ECC with extreme tensile ductility, on the order of several hundred times than that of normal concrete or fiber reinforced concrete. The experimental behaviour of ECC which is combined with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and steel fibers has been investigated in this research. The main aim of the research is to study the durability of ECC through compressive strength for long-term exposure condition under chloride, sulfate and combined sulfate–chloride environmental conditions experimentally. In the present work, six different ECC mixtures with constant water-cement ratio were prepared with the total volume fiber fraction (Vf) of 2%. ECC mechanical properties such as compressive strength, flexure strength and uni-axial tensile strength have been experimentally determined. The test results emphasize that the flexural strength and uni-tensile strength of the ECC specimens with the combination of 1.5% PVA and 0.5% steel fibers were improved as supposed to conventional ECCs. The durability property has been carried out only for the optimized dosage of fibers after exposed to aggressive solutions. The performance of optimized dosage of ECC mixture with hybrid fibers was barely affected by the aggressive solutions of chloride and sulfate–chloride when compared the same with water.
