Study of the Mechanical Properties of Jute Fiber Reinforced Cement Composites

Abstract

t-The study results show the use of jute fibers to develop a low costmaterial for wall panels, roofs and other construction board. The study has beeninvestigates the cement mechanical characteristics jute fibers reinforcedconcrete. Different lengths of fibers (2cm) and (4cm) were mixed to act asreinforcement for the concrete samples. The samples with different fiberpercentages (0.5%, 1% and 1.5% by weight of cement) were tested in axialcompression and splitting tensile strength. A total of (42) concrete cube samples(100mm*100mm*100mm) and (42) cylindrical samples (100mm*200mm) wereused in the tests, these include compressive and splitting tensile strength andwere conducted at (7) and (28) days of concrete age. The results showed thatincreasing the fiber content and length leads to a slight decrease (4.3% - 12.3%)in the compressive strength but it improves the splitting tensile strength whichreached best value at the (1% by weight of cement) fiber content and (5cm)length. The increasing of splitting tensile strength was up to (19.4%) from thereference concrete strength