The Influence of Additions in the Use of Glass Fibre Reinforced Cement as a Construction Material

Abstract

Although in recent years glass fibre reinforced cement (GRC) has been used in buildings and infrastructure, its application in structural elements has been somewhat restricted due to the worsening of its mechanical properties with ageing and the limited data available related with its fracture energy. With the aim of developing existing knowledge of GRC, the fracture energy in an in-plane and out-of-plane direction of the panel has been obtained. Three types of GRC with different formulations have been tested. The results showed that the fracture energy of a GRC with a 25% addition of a pozzolanic admixture is 40% and 8% higher than a standard GRC in, respectively, in-plane and out-of-plane directions. Similarly, an addition of 25% of thermal-treated kaolin to a standard GRC increases its fracture energy up to 490% and 400%, to the corresponding orientation. The use of digital image correlation (DIC) in the fracture test analysis has permitted a description of the damaging patterns and explanation of the behaviours identified in the fracture tests performed. The multi-cracking process that appears explains the higher fracture energy found in the GRC with an addition of 25% of the aforementioned thermal-treated kaolin. The analysis performed by means of DIC and the results obtained showed GRC with an addition of 25% of thermal-treated kaolin to be the most suitable formulation for possible future structural applications with a short life span in horizontal and vertical elements.