An investigation on the performance enhancement and cost reduction of engineered cementitious composites developed with local PVA and PET fibers

REC-15 Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers are the most widely used fibers in engineered cementitious composites (ECC). To reduce the high cost of fibers and also to restrain the crack width, local PVA (C-PVA) fibers and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers are hybridized to replace the REC-15 PVA fibers. Single fiber pullout tests of C-PVA and PET fiber were carried out first. A series of mixes with varying combinations of PET/C-PVA fiber contents and FA/cement ratios were then tested and a digital image correlation system was used to observe the formation and development of cracks. More importantly, the tensile performance of the hybrid-fiber composites has shown comprehensive improvement. With the proper combination of C-PVA and PET fiber content, novel ECC composites with much lower fiber cost have been developed to achieve 4.85 MPa tensile strength, 5.11% strain capacity, and less than 0.08 mm average crack width.