4TH International Congress on Technology - Engineering & SCIENCE - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia (2017-08-05)

Structural Behavior Of Ferrocement Beams Incorporating Polypropylene Fibers And Silica Fumes
In the recent years ferrocement or ferroconcrete is emerged as a reliable and cheaper component of reinforced concrete structures. This study aims at investigating the structural behavior of ferrocement beams both in flexure and shear with varying number of steel meshes along with polypropylene fibers and silica fume. A total of ten beams (Five for flexure & five for shear) were casted with 150mm x 250mm and there length was kept 2450mm. Each module include one controlled beam, a ferro beam with four steel meshes along with 1% polypropylene fiber (PPF) and 10% silica fume and finally three ferro beams with four, three and two steel meshes respectively without polypropylene fiber and silica fume. Silica fumes increased the strength of the mortar and polypropylene fiber played role in crack reduction and increased flexural capacity. Comparison of flexural strength and shear strength indicated the strength of the ferrobeam with PPF and silica fumes to be 97.22% of that of RC controlled beam in flexure & 96.5% of that of RC Controlled beam in flexure but in both cases larger deflections indicated a high ductility ratio in F4MPS than that of RC controlled beam, So Ferrocement material can be used as replacement of conventional RCC in seismic zones after some improvements where light weight and ductile material works better than conventional RCC.
M. Omair Jamil, Dr. Liaqat Ali Qureshi, Muhammad Usman Ali