Tensile behavior of glass textile reinforced mortar (TRM) added with short PVA fibers

Abstract

Textile reinforced mortar (TRM) is a promising composite material as an alternative solution of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP). TRM exhibits multiple cracks characteristic, high strength and strain under tension. In this work, 28 groups of uniaxial tensile specimens were designed to investigate the effect of content of short polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers, reinforcing ratio of textiles and types of matrices on the tensile behavior of TRM. The crack pattern and failure mode, energy dissipation capacity, stress-strain curves controlled by characteristic points were presented in this paper. The experimental results show that PVA fibers can significantly improve the crack pattern of TRM and increase the peak tensile strength and strain. The idealized bilinear curves controlled by characteristic points can be applied to describe the experimental stress-strain curves. Finally, a short fibers index was proposed to take account of the effect of PVA fibers. It is applicative for TRM with and without short fibers and shows a good agreement between the experimental and theoretical values.