Study on the performance of GFRP strengthened, fiber reinforced lightweight foam concrete

Abstract

Regular clay bricks and concrete blocks are replaced with light-weight fibre-reinforced foam concrete modules. For light weight foam concrete, various natural and synthetic fibes are employed as micro- and macro-fibre reinforcement. Three distinct fibres were used as fibre reinforcement in this study, and their strength qualities were investigated. As microfibre reinforcement, synthetic-polypropylene fibre, natural-Jute fibre, and banana micro fibres were used at volume fractions ranging from 0.22 to 0.55 percent in the foam concrete mix. The compression behaviour of stack bonded masonry prisms was investigated in the first phase of the experiment. The second phase of research focused on the microfibre-reinforced prism, which was reinforced with multiple layers of GFRP sheets. Both jute and banana fibres added as microfiber reinforcement to the matrix, impart ductility to the brittle masonry unit and reduce the sudden failure mode of the Fibre-Reinforced Lightweight Foam Concrete (FRLWC) prism. The insertion of GFRP sheets between the masonry layers provides additional stiffness and ductility to the FRLWC masonry prism, which greatly improves the post-cracking behaviour. When compared to a standard LWC prism, failure patterns show that both synthetic and natural fibre-reinforcement provide improved fracture bridging mechanisms, which is mostly owing to the arresting of cracks by micro polypropylene, jute, and banana fibres. The GFRP layers provided between the masonry units prevented the formation of major crack planes.