Development of Coir Fiber Reinforced Polymer Reinforcing Bars for Concrete Structures

Abstract

At present, global warming increment and petroleum reserve depletion have been a major threat to the environment. These occur due to various human activities. Construction industry contributes 40 % for the global carbon emission. From that 10% is contributed from the manufacture of cement and the rest is contributed by the other requirements in the construction industry. Therefore, scientists are now more focused to involve bio-based products to minimize the emission of carbon. This resulted in, paying more attention towards the natural composite materials that can be used instead of artificial materials. Scientists are eager to find natural materials which are locally available. The structures built today, does not survive the entire service life of the structure. This is due to corrosion of steel, especially in coastal areas. So, in order to overcome this, use of a natural material which can provide the same tensile strength can be used. Over the past few decades engineering materials like composites, plastics, ceramics has dominated the engineering industry. There are new polymer materials introduced such as glass fiber, carbon fiber and aramid but they are not eco-friendly. The main problem associated with these is the high production cost. Therefore, new composites which are environmentally friendly should be found in order to replace other materials. Even though there has been much research published on different natural fiber composite materials, here an attempt has been made to use coir to produce reinforcement bars in order to combat corrosion Keywords: coir, composite, corrosion, petroleum, fiber glass, aramid