Engineering properties of strain hardening geopolymer composites with hybrid polyvinyl alcohol and recycled steel fibres

Abstract

Strain hardening geopolymer composite (SHGC) is an alkali-activated material reinforced with randomly dispersed short fibres, which exhibits high ductility and strain hardening and multiple cracking behaviour. This paper presents an experimental study on the effect of hybrid polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and recycled tyre steel (RTS) fibres on engineering properties of fly ash-slag based SHGC cured at ambient temperature, including flowability, setting time, drying shrinkage, compressive strength and flexural behaviour in terms of stress–deflection response, first-crack strength and flexural strength, flexural toughness and toughening mechanisms. Four mix proportions of specimens with various volume fractions of hybrid PVA and RTS fibres including 1.5% PVA, 2% PVA, 1.75% PVA + 0.25% RTS and 1.5% PVA + 0.5% RTS were considered. The results indicated that the hybridisation of PVA fibre with RTS fibre led to a significant reduction in flowability, setting time and flexural strength of SHGC. However, the resistance to drying shrinkage and compressive strength of SHGC were greatly improved. Moreover, all specimens exhibited the expected deflection hardening behaviour with multiple stable microcracks formed over the tensile face of specimens under four-point bending. The addition of RTS fibre resulted in reduced crack widths in specimens where over 90% of cracks had a width of smaller than 60 μm. The mixture containing 2.0 vol% PVA fibre can be regarded as the optimal mixture for SHGC considering the strengths and deflection (or strain) hardening behaviour.