Experimental and numerical study on tensile behavior of surface modified PVA fiber reinforced strain-hardening cementitious composites (PVA-SHCC)

Abstract

Strain-hardening cementitious composites (SHCC) are a special class of high-performance fiber reinforced cementitious composites developed with 2% fiber content or lower. In order to promote the wider applications of SHCC in China, the domestic PVA fibers were treated with an oiling agent. The fiber-matrix interfacial properties were tailored to meet the micromechanics-based design requirements for strain-hardening and saturated multiple-cracking. The single fiber pull-out tests were conducted to study the interfacial behavior and tensile test was carried out to analyze the effects of treatment on the composite level. Oiling treatment has shown considerable improvement in modifying the interfacial properties for chemical debonding energy and frictional bond value respectively. In addition, finite element analysis for single fiber pull-out behavior has also showed good agreement with the experimental results. Moreover, the oil treated PVA fiber uniaxial tensile test results demonstrated significant improvement in mechanical performance with satisfactory strain-hardening in comparison with untreated composite. The present study suggests that the surface modified domestic PVA fibers could be feasible to produce cost-effective SHCC.