Mechanical and Structural Characteristics of PET Fiber Reinforced Concrete Plates

Abstract

ABSTRACT The growth of plastic generation has increased exponentially with time, in particular the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) that is widely used in the human consumer industry. The objective of this study is focused on sustainability principles by minimizing the environmental pollution through reusing the plastic bottles by cutting them into small fibers to reinforce the concrete matrix to boost the performance of reinforced concrete plates. To investigate the effect of the PET fiber content on the behavior of the two-way reinforced concrete plates, four two-way reinforced concrete plates. PET fiber percentages were (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2) %, with one reference plate without fiber tested up to failure under monotonic load. All concrete plates are simply supported and tested at age 28 days and with dimensions of (800 × 800 × 50) mm. The ultimate load, load-deflection relationships, and cracking patterns of all plates are reported. The findings reveal that employing PET fibers for strengthening could boost the ultimate strength and flexural stiffness of the plates considerably. Besides, the mechanical test results reveal a decrease in compression strength with increasing PET fiber content. On the contrary, the splitting tensile strength exhibited a clear improvement with the increase in PET. Graphical abstract