Browsing by Author "Bantie, Enyew"

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    A Study of Flexural and Compressive Strengths of Jute Fibre-Reinforced Concrete
    (Addis Ababa University, 2010-03) Bantie, Enyew; Adamu, Asnake(PhD)
    The problems associated with low efficiency in tensile strength of structural elements, brittle mode of failure, rapid crack propagation and increased overload are common in the concrete construction industry. Whereas ordinary steel reinforced concrete is the most popular mechanism developed so far to alleviate such problems, it is rather becoming expensive in production costs, transportation of pre-cast members, maintenance costs and the supply of much amount of steel. These impediments have driven the development of contemporary concrete technologies such as high strength concrete and fibre reinforced concrete in which all the advancements entail an investigation into the constitutive materials. This thesis is part of such works dealing with the experimental assessment of flexural and compressive strengths of JFRC with different jute fibre contents. To achieve this objective a series of compression and two point bending tests were conducted. The results of the compression test indicated that the presence of jute fibre tends to reduce the compressive strength of concrete at higher fibre content. Despite the minimal reduction in the compressive strength at higher jute fibre content, there is an improvement of ductility after cracking of concrete. Similarly, the bending test results indicated that the modulus of rupture of concrete increases by 50% at 0.50% jute fibre content. Moreover, jute fibre significantly improves the toughness behavior of concrete. There is as much as 28%, 82% and 105% increment in5I, 10I, and 20I respectively at 1.00% jute fibre. In spite of the limited scope of the thesis work and the shortcomings associated with jute fibre, the thesis work results elite a hope that JFRC can be used in areas where small tensile reinforcement is expected and also in the construction of temporary structures. The least cost of jute fibre, its being renewable resources, the reduced weight of the JFRC composite and the reduction in consumption of other constitutes of the concrete matrix would indicate its economic advantage. While an assessment of flexural and compression strengths of JFRC have been shown and described in detail in this thesis, various additional changes and modifications may be made to study other properties of JFRC.