Thermo-mechanical behaviour of newly developed fabric-reinforced engineered geopolymer mortar

Geopolymer technology is a spectacular technique which provides solutions to several construction problems in a sustainable way. In the primary stage of this research, geopolymer mortar using industrial and agro wastes, such as fly ash and sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBA) was developed. It was found that the geopolymer mortar with 10% SCBA shows good mechanical and durability properties. In the second stage of this research, engineered geopolymer mortar (EGM) using 10% SCBA content and polypropylene (PP) fiber was developed. In the final stage of this study, a novel strengthening system made of fabric-reinforced engineered geopolymer mortar (FREGM) composites was developed using EGM and glass fabric. To characterise mechanical response, the FREGM material has been subjected to flexural and tensile tests. It was discovered that 4-layers of glass fabrics attained 21.87 MPa flexural strength. The feasibility of practical applications of this newly developed FREGM material was checked by using it for strengthening the cylindrical and beam specimens. For the cylindrical specimen, the test variables include methods of installations (cast-in-place and prefabricated), number of glass fiber fabrics, and test temperature (200 degrees C, 400 degrees C and 600 degrees C). The cast-in-place cylinder specimen achieved 6% higher load carrying capacity than the precast cylinder, and 30% higher load carrying capacity than the control specimen. The beam specimens strengthened with geopolymer mortar, EGM and FREGM materials performance were evaluated by studying the load- deflection behaviour, cost analysis, ductility factor, crack and installation methods (cast-inplace and prefabricated). It is found that the cast-in-place beam specimen achieved 9.5% more strength than the precast beam and 46% higher than the control specimen.