High cementitious composite ductilitiy reinforced with fibers

Abstract

The practice of adding fibers to the cementitious materials began in the decade of 60. Since then, various researches have been developed in order to provide improvements in the behavior of the cementitious materials and consequently contribute to the applications of the material in civil construction. The concrete is considered a brittle material, therefore the addition of fibers provides gains in their resistance to traction and control cracking. That said, the purpose of this paper is to present a high performance cementitious composite by adding polypropylene fibers to give the material concrete gain in ductility. The main base of this study is to produce a composite which present high ductility properties from materials found on Paraná. For this study, it were developed 16 traits of a cementitious composite with the addition of silica fume and natural sand, incorporating high tenacity polypropylene fibers. The traits were tested according to the criteria of the European standard RILEM, seeking results that demonstrate the ductility cementitious composite. Among the composites studied, which contained 2% fiber showed the best results in relation to the gain in ductility. Also the active silica levels were studied in traits, from which it can be concluded that the addition of fiber and active silica produces major changes in the composite behavior, improving its tensile strength and ductility.