An Investigation on Behaviour of Non-metallic Areca Fibre-Reinforced Concrete Beam

Abstract

Constructing shelters for residential, commercial, industrial activities with fine and coarse aggregates as reinforced concrete structures with steel is a challenging task to the world community without exploiting natural resources. It is essential to have natural materials instead of using conventional building materials for achieving sustainable development. It is also mandatory to reduce the carbon emission for protecting the planet from global warming. So, this research is focussing towards use of areca tree fibre as partial replacement to aggregate and reinforcement. An attempt was made to predict the properties of M30 areca fibre concrete with 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75% and 1.0% of areca fibre and cube, cylinder and beam specimens were casted. The beams were casted with four steel rods of 12 mm diameter and areca fibre proportion of 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75% and 1.0% by volume fraction. It was observed from the test results that the areca fibre concrete achieved its maximum compressive strength as 47.93 N/mm² at 0.5% areca fibre. The maximum split tensile strength was 6.01 N/mm² at 0.75% of areca fibre. The areca fibre beam with steel rods achieved its maximum flexural strength as 10.03 N/mm² at 0.75% of areca fibre. It is concluded that the use of 0.75% of areca fibre may reduce the usage of aggregates and steel in the construction industry and pave the way to achieve sustainable construction technology.