Assessment of Performance of Fiber Reinforced Geopolymer Composites by Experiment and Simulation Analysis

Abstract

In this work, the experimental and simulation analysis of the performance of geopolymer composites reinforced with steel fiber and polypropylene fiber is investigated. By embedding hooked end steel fiber and polypropylene fiber with various volume fractions of 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5% to the geopolymer concrete mixture, the mechanical behavior was enhanced significantly through experimental results. The compressive strength was improved 26% with 0.5% of polypropylene fiber and 46% with 1% of hooked end steel fiber while the increment of splitting tensile strength was 12% and 28%, respectively. The flexural strength of specimens using two fiber types was also improved when compared with the non-fiber geopolymer concrete. The highest increment obtained with 1.5% of fiber volume content was from 26% to 42%. The compressive performance and flexural performance of fiber-reinforced geopolymer concrete were also better than specimens without fiber, with a higher load carrying capacity, higher stress, higher toughness and smaller strain. Using hooked end steel fiber resulted in better mechanical strength than using polypropylene fiber, and the presence of fibers is an important factor related to the strength improvements. A finite element analysis was modeled by the ANSYS program, and this showed that the load–deflection response and crack patterns also agreed quite well with experimental results.