Sandwich Concrete Panel Reinforced With Sisal Fiber Mesh For Application In Wall Construction

Abstract

In recent years, the use of plant fibers were widely implemented in polymer composites materials with their advantages to provide high specific strength and low density. This paper introduces the application of sisal fiber mesh to reinforce wall sandwich concrete panel for housing and building industries. The fibers were tested initially to obtain its properties included tensile strength. Ten concrete walls were designed and investigated under axial and flexural loading. The walls consisted of sandwich walls and normal walls with three various types were considered. The wall section was 300x100 mm and 300x70 mm with length of 700 mm. The sisal fiber mesh reinforcements were embedded in two sides of wall by about 15 mm from the outer surface of the wall. Experimental results showed that the axial compression did not affect by the presence of sisal fiber mesh. However, flexural strength of the wall increased 80% and 32% for normal wall and sandwich wall respectively. The thickness of the wall has also identified had significant effect to the flexural strength. Increasing wall thickness from 70 mm to 100 mm will improve flexural strength to 1.43 and 1.98 for sandwich fibers wall and normal wall respectively