Strength of mortar reinforced with geogrid

Abstract

The iron in ferrocement is susceptible to corrosion when exposed to severe environmental conditions, use of an alternate non-corrosive mesh type reinforcement is more appropriate and suggested in future construction. In this study, polypropylene geogrids were used as the reinforcement in mortar. Study deals with the strength characteristics of mortar reinforced with geogrid. Biaxial geogrids have high tensile strength in two directions and this property can be beneficially used in mortar and concrete. The mortar specimens containing with and without polypropylene geogrid panels were tested. In-plane tension, in-plane compression and flexure tests were conducted. The effect of number of layers and orientation of geogrid was investigated. A total of 96 specimens were tested in the study. From the experimental results, geogrid reinforcement was found to be useful to enhance the unidirectional tensile strength and flexural strength of the mortar. Variations in the number of layers have a significant effect on tensile strength of composite. While in case of flexural strength, increasing the number of layers beyond a limit has negligible effect. The test results showed that tensile strength and flexural strength of composite is influenced by the orientation of geogrid. The tensile stress and flexure stress values of specimens were compared with theoretical values based on Voigt model. The results were comparable and hence validated.