Enhancing concrete properties with polythene terephthalate fibers

日期 : Feb 2022 - Dec 2022

<div><p>Plastic waste is one of the most notorious material responsible for environemtal pollution. Recycling of plastic waste is being practiced worldwide for cost effective manufacturing in addition to minimizing its environmental hazards. In this study plastic waste is being utilized for enhancing the concrete properties and mitigating its environmental impacts. For this purpose polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers is being added to M15 grade concrete and various properties of the newly developed concrete mix are evaluated.   Three main properties namely workability, compressive strength and split tensile strength of the newly mixed concrete are assessed at different percentage of PET fibers in the concrete mix. For evaluating workability of the concrete three samples of concrete slumps developed using concrete slump cone with 0%, 0.5% and 1% of PET fibers in the are analyzed. The compressive and split tensile strength of the PET mixed concrete is assessed using Universal Testing Machine (UTM). From results it was observed that the average workability of all ratios of PET fibers for the newly developed mix of concrete was 25 mm. The compressive strength was observed to increaseby 22% while the split tensile strength showed an enhancement of 20%. The workability of the concrete mix was observed to decrease with increasing the percentage of PET fibers. It is recommended to use the PET mixed concrete for enhancing the compressive and tensile strength of concrete with lower average workability values.  However, a suitable check is suggested for enhancing the strength so, as not to compromise in the workability at the same time. </p></div>