AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON FLEXURAL BEHAVIOUR OF FIBRE REINFORCED ROBO SAND FERROCEMENT

Abstract

Now a days due to many civil engineering constructions through out the globe the usage of natural sand is very large and so it is slowly becoming scarce. Because of this main reason in the present days the usage of Robo sand or Crushed or artificial sand has gained momentum. This paper presents a brief study on the flexural behaviour of fibre reinforced ferrocement elements made with artificial sand(Robo sand).Nearly 30 mortar cubes and 180 flexural specimens were cast and tested with the variables such as different percentages of steel fibre, number of wire mesh layers and different span to depth ratios (a/d) etc,. From the results it is observed that with the increase in percentage of fibres the compressive strength of mortar, first crack load, ultimate load in flexure, flexural stress at first crack load, flexural stress at ultimate load and energy absorption increase up to certain extent and afterwards get decreased. Also the above strength parameters are found to increase with number of wire mesh layers. More so the above strengths are found to decrease with the increase in a/d ratio except the flexural stresses at first crack load and ultimate load. Besides the paper presents the behaviour of load – deflection variation and crack pattern for number of variables studied. Further a comparative study of the behaviour of robo sand specimens with those of the natural sand has been studied. Finally an analytical model has been proposed for Mcr and Mu with the inclusion of the most of the variables used in the present investigation.