Influence of geometry on the fracturing behavior of textile reinforced cement monitored by acoustic emission

In this work the flexural behavior of textile reinforced cement (TRC) laminate is examined using acoustic emission (AE). The TRC composite is a combination of inorganic phosphate cement (IPC) with randomly distributed glass fibres. IPC has been developed at the "Vrije Universiteit Brussel" and shows a neutral pH meaning that glass fibers are hardly attacked. During bending, stresses lead to the activation of damage mechanisms like matrix cracking, delaminations and fiber pull-out being in succession or overlapping in time. AE records the responses of the damage propagation events and allows the monitoring of the fracture behavior from the onset to the final stage. The effect of the span in three-point bending tests, which is varied to create different stress fields, is targeted. Parameters like duration and frequency reveal information about the mode of the damage sources in relation to the span. Results show that as the span decreases, the dominant damage mode shifts away from bending and acquires more shear characteristics by increasing the interlaminar shearing events.