Tensile Behaviour of Concrete with Polyvinyl Alcohol (PV A) Fiber

The purpose of the report is to summarize and brief the final year project. The topic of
the project is "The Tensile Behaviour of Concrete with Polyvinyl Alcohol Fiber". The
main objective of this project is to study about the tensile behaviour of concrete when
being added with another mixture which is polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber. This study
includes to investigate the effects of PVA fiber content to concrete's strength through
experiments, and to determine whether PV A fiber is ideal in enhancing the properties of
concrete. Concrete is very strong material when it is placed in compression. However,
unreinforced or plain concrete are characterized by low tensile strengths; which is they
are brittle materials. Therefore, regular concrete is normally reinforced with high tensile
strength steel to correct for the lack of tension in concrete. For many applications, it is
becoming increasingly popular to reinforce the concrete with small, randomly
distributed fibers. PV A fiber has some suitable characteristics as reinforcing materials
for cementatious composites such as strong bonding strength with concrete, high tensile
strength and others. Nowadays, PV A fiber is considered as one of the most suitable
polymeric fibers to be used as the reinforcement of cements. The used of concrete with
PV A fiber in engineering applications has furthered the need for the study of its
behaviour under tensile loading. Tensile strength is the basis for its ability to resist
bending, or its flexural strength. The scope of study would include research through
journals and reading materials in relation to concrete strength, PV A fibers and fiber
reinforced concrete. The concretes with PV A fibers are mixed according to the mix
proportioning that had been calculated. Several numbers of lab experiments such as
compressive strength and splitting tensile test are carried out to determine the effects of
infusing PV A fiber in concrete mix. The tests were being carried through with ages of
1, 3, 7, 19, 28, and 60 days, with curing in humid chamber. From the research, it can be
concluded that the addition of fibers will increase the strength of concrete, thus making
it a much more attractive material than plain concrete, which appears to have no such
limit. Based on the results, it observed that the highest strength is produced from
concrete infused with 1% PV A fibers. Besides, the fresh concrete seems to become
drier when more PV A fibers added in the mix.