Deflection Ductility of Slabs Made of Hybrid Mesh-And-Fibre-Reinforced Cementbased Composite

Abstract

Steel Mesh-Reinforced Cementitious Composites (SMRCC) (traditionally known as ferrocement) have been in existence for few decades, but have some limitations set on element thickness and number of reinforcing mesh layers and the resulting deflection ductility. Therefore, the author has made an attempt to explore whether deflection ductility will improve in mesh-reinforced cementitious composites (25 mm thick) if discontinuous fibres are added to slab elements. were analyzed. From the flexural load-deflection curves it has been observed that HMFRCBC slabs demonstrate higher flexural load-carrying capacity and deflection ductility when compared to SMRCC slabs. This study shows that higher the polyolefin fibre volume fraction (PO-FVf) from 0.5 to 2.5% (with a 0.5% interval) in HMFRCBC slabs, the higher the flexural deflection ductility. The Deflection Ductility Index (DDI) of HMFRCBC (with 5 layers of mesh and PO-FVf=2.5%) is 4.5 times that of SMRCC. This study recommends that HMFRCBC can be used as an innovative construction material due to its higher flexural ductility characteristics.