Mechanical Properties of Engineered Cementitious Composite Mixture

The concrete is the man-made material which is well-known and enormously utilized by the whole world. This matter leads to crucial problems related to its design and expectation to finally gain an economic cost of the product for both short and long duration. The concrete need to be also environmental friendly during its fabrication process. Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) has different abilities compare to the normal concrete. It has the passing and filling ability plus give higher strength with the addition of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA). The aim of the research work reported in this thesis is to develop engineered cementitious composite mixtures satisfying the self-compacting requirements and to evaluate the hardened properties of self-compacted ECC mixtures. To enhance the concrete performance, PVA is used. The PVA improved some characteristics and properties of the concrete. Ten mixes with different Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) fiber contents (0.0%, 1.0%, 1.5%, 2.0%, 2.5%, 3.0%, 3.5%, 4.0%, 4.5% and 5.0%) have been prepared. Three cubes (100mm x 100mm x 100mm), three beams (100mm x 100mm x 500mm) and three cylinders (150mm diameter and 300mm height) have been cast for each mix and tested at the age of 7 and 28 days for compressive strength and at age of 28 days for splitting and flexural strength. The V-funnel, L-box and slump test also have been conducted to access the fresh properties like workability and flowability of the concrete. The results indicated the increase in the strength of the concrete and the formulas for predicting the compressive, splitting and flexural strength from PVA (%) has been developed.