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Shear Strength of Reinforced Mortar Beams Containing Polyvinyl Alcohol Fibre (PVA)

International Journal of Civil Engineering volume 19, pages 1155–1178 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

The current study aims to assess the shear behaviour of reinforced mortar beams including Polyvinyl Alcohol Fibre (PVA) ranges from 0 to 2.25%, fly ash (55%) and silica fume (15%). Fourteen beams were experimentally tested under two concentrated loads. In addition, a finite element model was developed to predict the crack pattern, load–deflection, energy absorption, and shear strength results of the test beams. The studied variables were different percentages of PVA fibres, shear span to depth ratio (a/d), and transverse reinforcement (stirrups) ratio. The fly ash and silica fume were kept constant in all the studied mixes to achieve a compressive strength above 55 MPa at the time of testing (90 days) and to improve PVA-mortar properties. It was found that the inclusion of PVA improves the shear behavior of the tested beams in terms of crack pattern and ductility. It was observed also that reducing a/d led to enhancing the shear capacity without changing the mode of failure. In addition, PVA played the same role as the stirrups and their effect on the ultimate shear capacity was increased with reducing the volume of stirrups. Moreover, the PVA fibres were more effective in lower shear span to depth ratio (a/d = 1.5) giving an enhancement of shear resistance of 221%. The non-linear finite element model showed excellent agreement with the experimental results and the ratio of the predicted to experimental ultimate strength ranged between 0.91 and 1.09. The authors recommend a combination of fly ash, silica fume and at least 1.5% PVA in the presence of minimum stirrups reinforcement (5\(\Phi\)6/m) or adding 2.25% PVA without stirrups to achieve adequate shear behaviour and to improve the ductility of PVA-mortar beams.

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Funding

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors state that they did not get any funding for this research and it is self-funded.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering (Shoubra), Benha University, Banha, Egypt

    Mohamed Said

  2. Construction and Building Department, Faculty of Engineering, October 6 University, Al Mehwar Al Markazi, Egypt

    Wael Montaser & Ahmed S. Elgammal

  3. Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

    Amr H. Zahir

  4. School of Computing and Engineering, University of West London, London, UK

    Ibrahim G. Shaaban

Authors
  1. Mohamed Said
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  2. Wael Montaser
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  3. Ahmed S. Elgammal
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  5. Ibrahim G. Shaaban
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Correspondence to Ibrahim G. Shaaban.

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Said, M., Montaser, W., Elgammal, A.S. et al. Shear Strength of Reinforced Mortar Beams Containing Polyvinyl Alcohol Fibre (PVA). Int J Civ Eng 19, 1155–1178 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-021-00628-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-021-00628-6

Keywords

  • PVA
  • Mortar
  • Shear of beams
  • Fly ash
  • Silica fume
  • Non-linear finite element modeling