Strength and Structural Performance of Reinforced Concrete Beam with Artificial Plastic Fibre (APF)

Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete (RC) in beam structure has captured attention of many researchers. Many past researchers investigated the issue of concrete strength in tensile zone. The present research investigates the effect of waste nylon cable ties fibre that act as an Artificial Plastic Fibres (APF) in normal concrete mix and RC beam element. The concrete strength of 30 MPa have been utilized in this research. The percentage of APF that has been mixed with the concrete paste are 1% and 3%. For strength performance, nine (9) cube specimens and nine (9) cylinder specimens were tested under compressive and splitting tensile test, respectively. In addition, six (6) RC beam specimens were prepared and tested under three points bending test in order to investigate its structural performance. Based on the results, 0%, 1% and 3% of APF in concrete mix produces tensile strength of 1.89 MPa, 3.37 MPa and 2.66 MPa respectively. While, from the compression tests, 50.9 MPa, 47.2 MPa and 24.5 MPa were generated from 0%, 1% and 3% of APF, respectively. From this observations, only 1% of APF was employed in concrete mix to produce RC beam for structural performance investigations. Based on three point bending test, RC beam that consisting 1% of APF produced maximum load about 35.98 kN with 1.8 mm deflection compared with control specimen that can only endured until 27.93 kN of maximum load with 2.37 mm deflection. Further observation reveals that cracking of RC beam consisting 1% of APF reduce and delay the crack formation. Overall, utilization of 1% APF in RC beam successfully improves its strength and structural performance.